A TRUE REPUBLIC 



BY 



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ALBERT STICKNEY 




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NEW YORK 
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS 

FRANKLIN SQUARE 
1 879 



II 



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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879. by 

HARPER & BROTHERS, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



" God said, I am tired of kings, 
I suffer them no more ; 
Up to my ear the morning brings 
The outrage of the poor. 
* * * * 

" I will have never a noble ; 
No lineage counted great ; 
Fishers and choppers and ploughmen 
Shall constitute a State."— Emerson. 

"But a democratic nation may be imagined, organized differently 
from the American people. Is it, then, impossible to conceive a 
government really established upon the will of the majority, but 
in which the majority, repressing its natural instinct of equality, 
should consent, with a view to the order and stability of the State, 
to invest a family or an individual with all the attributes of execu- 
tive power? Might not a democratic society be imagined in which 
the forces of the nation would be more centralized than they are in 
the United States ; where the people would exercise a less direct 
and less irresistible influence upon public affairs, and yet every 
citizen, invested with certain rights, would participate, within his 
sphere, in the conduct of the government ?"— De Tocqueville. 



NOTE. 



This book is not the work of a scholar. It concerns mat- 
ters which lie outside of my profession, and which I have 
never studied with thoroughness. To its writing I have 
been able to give only such time from day to day as could be 
taken from professional practice. It is not what I wish I 
might make it ; no doubt it has many faults of which I have 
no knowledge or suspicion. 

But it is written for a purpose. Its purpose must be the 
excuse for its existence. 

The people of the United States have a new and great 
problem to solve. That they will solve it I make no doubt. 

The immense growth of party which we have had in this 
country is something new in history. I do not think its 
evils have been duly weighed; nor do I think its causes have 
been carefully studied. It has been too readily assumed that 
political parties are desirable things in the State. We speak 
of the abuses of party government. Is it certain that party 
government now has its uses ? 

Party and party rule, as they now exist with us, are, as I 
believe, great evils — evils which naturally and certainly re- 
sult from certain features in our political system. 

In private life we find in every profession and employ- 
ment many men who do their work as well as they know 
how. We have at times such men in public life ; but, as a 
rule, our public men do their work, not as well as they know 
how, but only as well as the interests of party will allow them. 
Many of those men have good intentions, but they are bound 



6 NOTE. 

in the chains of party. Party controls the selection of our 
public servants ; it controls their actions. 

I believe all this can be changed. There is somewhere a 
remedy for this state of things. That remedy can be found. 
And if the remedy can be found, it will be used. I have un- 
bounded faith in the honesty and sound sense of the people 
of the United States. They made this Government because 
they thought wise to make it. They will change this Gov- 
ernment if they ever think wise to change it. 

This is the point to be determined. Is it, or not, wise to 
make some changes in our political machinery — and if so, 
what changes ? 

The views here set forth may be mistaken. Whether they 
are or not will be easily shown. They may at least ]3rovoke 
the truth. To find out precisely the nature of the evils un- 
der which we suffer, and their remedies, we need only calm 
thought and discussion. To do yeoman's service in this dis- 
cussion is the purpose in writing this book. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 
INTRODUCTORY 9 

CHAPTER II. 

HEREDITARY MONARCHY — THE TYRANNY OF KINGS 16 

CHAPTER III. 

CONSTITUTIONAL ROYALTY — UNFINISHED REVOLUTION . 26 

CHAPTER IV. 

FALSE REPUBLICANISM — THE TYRANNY OF PARTY 6S 

CHAPTER V. 

PARTY — ITS CAUSES, ITS NATURE, AND ITS USES 104 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE SECURITIES FOR GETTING THE BEST SERVANTS 154 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE SECURITIES FOR GETTING THE BEST SERVICE 170 

CHAPTER VIII. 

THE JUDICIARY 204 



8 CONTEXTS, 

CHAPTER IX. 

PAGE 
EXECUTIVE ADMINISTRATION 206 

CHAPTER X. 

THE LEGISLATURE 212 

CHAPTER XL 

A TRUE REPUBLIC 242 

CHAPTER XII. 

CONCLUSION B ,... 258 

APPENDIX..,. ..... 267 



A TRUE REPUBLIC. 



CHAPTER L 

INTRODUCTO RY. 

We have been living under the Constitution of the 
United States now nearly one hundred years, and in that 
time we have done a great work. We have cleared a wil- 
derness, filled it with thriving cities and villages, and cover- 
ed it with railroads and mills. We have, in the main, a 
free and law-abiding people. We have become one of the 
great nations of the earth. 

Many men, too, think that we have a nearly perfect 
form of government, that here at last a true Republic has 
reached a ripe growth. 

Yet we nearly all agree that the daily working of this 
government is not what we wish. Men in all parts of the 
country say much of Civil Service Reform. It means one 
thing — that whatever they may think as to the theory of 
our government, it does not in practice give satisfactory 
results. 

We ought to have in our public affairs, as we should all 
agree, our very best men, and the very best work that they 
know how to give us. Nothing less than that will serve 
our needs. It is not enough for us to have merely or- 
dinary men and ordinary work. And these best men and 

1* 



10 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

their best work we must have at all times, in time of 
peaee as well as war. in times of seeming safety as well as 
of danger. 

Laving entirely out of consideration the needs of war, 
and looking only to our ordinary business relations with 
the rest of the world in times of peace, we need always 
the wisest and most economical management of our pub- 
lic affairs. The people that now wishes to win in the race 
of life must be able to sell cotton and woollen cloths and 
railroad iron at the lowest price. The price at which we 
can sell cloth and iron depends very greatly on the way 
in which our government affairs are managed. Every dol- 
lar spent by our public officials is in some way paid by 
the people, and is charged in the price of what we make 
and sell. To be able to sell cheaply, we must have our 
public affairs, as well as our mills and railroads, operated at 
the lowest possible cost and in the wisest way. We have 
to compete with all other nations : and the difference of 
only one or two millions a year in our government ex- 
penses may easily at some day win or lose for us the 
markets of the world. 

But war is a thing that must still be counted as one of 
the possibilities of our daily life. It comes without warn- 
ing. It is ruin without preparation. At this day cam- 
paigns are short and deadly. They are won by that peo- 
ple which can in the shortest time mass at one point the 
heaviest armies of the best men. with the best generals 
and the finest material. Armies cannot be made in one 
year or two. We have in our mere position a great pro- 
tection. But we cannot depend on our position only for 
safety. In the war of the Rebellion we had an enemy as 
unprepared as we were ourselves ; and we could then take 
two or three years to create and organize an army. We 



INTRODUCTORY. 1 1 

had, too, such an immense advantage over our enemy in 
strength and numbers that we could throw away men, 
money, and material without stint, and still carry our cause. 
But suppose we were to have a war against a nation with 
an army like the Prussian army and a navy like the Eng- 
lish navy. We could not then take two or three years to 
raise an army. Nor could we then waste thousands of 
men and millions of money. We must make our prepara- 
tions in time of peace, before war comes, or we shall be 
beaten before we begin them. The winning of campaigns 
may at any time depend on mere economy of men and 
material; and the fullest preparation with vast resources 
may all go for nothing, unless we have great generals and 
great war ministers. 

To manage well mills and railroads, as we all under- 
stand, requires men of great ability and thorough training. 
But how T is it with the vast affairs of a nation ? Our safety 
at any time depends on our having in our service at all 
times the Bismarcks and Napoleons, if they can be found. 
Individuals and private corporations in this country have 
little difficulty in finding good men to do their work, and 
in having that work well done. Go into any one of our 
best mills. Every man, woman, and child in the place has 
wonderful skill in doing some one thing. Nothing is 
wasted. The whole immense combination of men and 
iron and water and steam works like the delicate mechan- 
ism of a watch, and brings great results at the least cost. 

But is it so in our government affairs ? 

We found here a new country. We had in the begin- 
ning to use rude methods and machinery. Our roads were 
rough. We built our dwellings of timber from the nearest 
forest, instead of brick or stone. Our bridges we made of 
open trestle-work, instead of solid masonry ; but our build- 



12 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

ings, our bridges, our railroads, all kinds of work done by 
private individuals, have been all the time growing better. 

On the other hand, in our government affairs we began 
well, and have ever since been steadily losing ground. We 
had at first in our public service the best men in the country, 
and we had from them their best work. The men we now 
have in the public service are not our best men ; nor do we 
have from them the best work that even they can give us. 

There must be a reason for this. My belief is that the 
reason is to be found in our system of government. As 
I believe, our system of government is such that it must 
certainly drive and keep our best men out of public life, 
and is such as to make it certain that the men whom we 
have in public life will not give us the best work they 
know how to give. 

Some of us have been in the habit of thinking that the 
Constitution of 1787 was a work finished for all time. It 
may be not so. Every new Constitution, or form of gov- 
ernment, or statute is nothing but an experiment in polit- 
ical science. The Constitution of 1787 was simply anoth- 
er experiment ; and the men who framed it never thought 
it anything else. The idea that some men now hold, that 
this Constitution of the United States is the one perfect 
piece of political machinery that the world has ever seen, 
is a weak growth of later years. The men of 1787 knew 
better. No one of them thought it the best form of gov- 
ernment that could be devised. It was the only form on 
which they could then agree. It was a form, as they well 
knew, to be tried, and to be changed if upon trial it should 
be found, in some points, to fail. 

The people of the United States is richer than any pri- 
vate individual, and it ought to be able to draw to its ser- 
vice the ablest men in the country. 



INTRODUCTORY. 19 

It ia my belief that we can in our public affairs have a 
better service than any private individuals can command 
in their private affairs, if we only have the right govern- 
ment machinery ; and it is my belief that we can have the 
right government machinery. We have at this day wider 
information than the men who designed our Constitution a 
hundred years ago. Where they had only conjecture we 
have knowledge. They began an experiment — we have its 
results. Is it possible that from those results we can learn 
nothing? And are we forever to use the machinery of a 
past age, throwing away all the teachings of later years ? 

It is intended by this inquiry to find, if may be, what 
are the faults in our political system. For, in my belief, 
there are faults that can be clearly pointed out. The in- 
tention, then, is to find, if may be, the remedies for those 
faults. And, in my belief, the precise remedies can be 
pointed out. 

It is no part of my purpose to dilate on the good points 
in our Constitution. They are, as I think, very many and 
vt-ry great. But this is a search for only diseases and 
remedies. Xor is it intended here to give a scientific trea- 
tise on government. Some general principles will be con- 
sidered, but only so far as is needed for the purpose of 
this special examination. 

It will be well to state, at the outset, the point to be 
considered. 

We are in the habit of saying much about "popular 
government." What do we mean by it ? Xot that the 
people of the whole country are themselves to raise, equip, 
and command their armies, pass their laws, or themselves 
sit on the benches of their courts ; but only that the peo- 
ple are, directly or indirectly, to select the men who are to 
do this government work for them. 



14 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

This government work which is to be done by the peo- 
ple's servants is of different kinds. And a very natural 
division of that work, which in this country we have as- 
sumed to be a wise one, is this. There are — 

1. The administration of justice. 

2. Executive administration — the management of the 
affairs of the army, the navy, the post-office, the treasury, 
and other similar departments of the Government. 

3. Legislation, as it is commonly called — which is, in 
effect, the exercising the supreme control in the State over 
the citizens, and over all the work of all kinds done by 
public servants. 

It will be assumed that in its general features the frame- 
work of our Government is what it should be. Justice is 
to be administered by courts and judges, constituted in the 
main as they now are. The Executive administration is 
to be carried on by different departments, with one man 
at the head of each department, and with one man over all 
departments, whom we call the Chief Executive. Legisla- 
tion is to be carried on by one or two assemblies of men 
(whether one or two will not be here discussed) who are 
elected, directly or indirectly, by the people, and the Leg- 
islature is to have the power of passing the laws and con- 
trolling the supplies. 

Some modifications in our system of government will 
be proposed which are not deemed of the utmost impor- 
tance. 

But it has been already said that our system of govern- 
ment is such as necessarily and certainly to keep out of 
the public service our best men, and is such as to make 
it certain that the men in our public service will not give 
us their best work. The main inquiry here made, then, 
will be what changes, if any, we need in our political sys- 



INTRODUCTORY. Ill 

tern, in order to secure in each department of our public; 
service — 

1. Our best men. 

2. Their best work. 

If we can secure these two points, we shall have nearly 
all we can ask. We can hardly have more than that un- 
der any system of government. 

And there is no need of theorizing. The student in 
political science cannot, indeed, like the chemist, make his 
own experiments. He can only study experiments made 
by other men in times gone by. But those experiments 
made by other men have been very many, and of many 
kinds. 

Some men think that hereditary monarchy may, with 
all its evils, be the only effective means of dealing with 
lawless men, who are certain to be found in every society. 
Other men think that we need to adopt some features 
from what is called parliamentary government. It will 
best serve the purposes of this inquiry if we first give 
some consideration to these two systems, and see what 
lessons we can learn from either. 



16 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 



CHAPTER II. 

HEREDITARY MONARCHY THE TYRANNY OF KINGS. 

Among civilized nations hereditary monarchy, of the 
absolute type, is coming to be a thing of the past. Yet 
it has, even for republicans, some useful lessons. It has 
its bad features. But it may be that it has some features 
which it would be well for us to copy. 

A pure despotism, with no limits whatever to the pow- 
er of the monarch, can seldom, if ever, exist. Some limits 
there always are to the use of his power, fixed either by 
custom or by the temper of the people, beyond which the 
monarch does not venture to go. 

But hereditary monarchy, as far as it can have one typ- 
ical form, and as far as it here claims our notice, has these 
distinguishing features — 

1. One man is the head of the executive administration. 

2. This same one man is the supreme authority in the 
State. He holds the purse and makes the laws. 

3. He is chosen, not for his fitness, but by the chance of 
birth. 

4. He is " irresponsible ;" that is, his power cannot, if he 
misuse it, be taken from him by any peaceful procedure 
under the law. 

This system of hereditary monarchy, with these main 
features, has been often tried, by one people after another, 
in the world's history. And their experience has very 
clearly established certain results. And, whatever may 



HEREDITARY MONARCHY. 17 

have been the theory of the English laws, this system of 
hereditary monarchy has been in times past very thor- 
oughly tried in England. The experience of the English 
people under it will be found sufficient to show the good 
and bad points of the system everywhere. 

The first feature which has been mentioned, that of hav- 
ing one man at the head of the whole executive adminis- 
tration, has undoubtedly, at times, given good results. In 
fact, under all systems of government, all the efficient ad- 
ministration we have ever seen has been had when, from 
one reason or another, affairs have been under the control 
of one man. But these good results come only when this 
head of the executive administration is both an able man 
and an honest one. When he is either weak or dishonest, 
then the results are bad. 

But this is an advantage that we can have under a sys- 
tem of government which is elective, which has in it no 
hereditary element. We can give to an elected chief mag- 
istrate any degree of power. We may, if we will, make 
him a despot. To gain any advantage, as far as this point 
is concerned, we need not have an hereditary system of 
government. And in fact the most brilliant administra- 
tions in the history of hereditary monarchies have usually 
been in the reigns of the usurpers who have founded dy- 
nasties, and not of the descendants who have inherited 
their power. Hereditary monarchy, then, can have no ad- 
vantage, even as to vigor of administration, unless it can 
also give us some security for getting at the head of af- 
fairs men who are both able and honest. 

How, then, has the system operated, in so far as it gives 
to one man the supreme authority in the State ? 

It has been well proved that the control of the people's 
money, and the control of the methods of government, 



18 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

that is, the power of making the laws, should never be put 
in the hands of one man, for two reasons. No one man 
can have the needed wisdom. We must have the wisdom 
of many minds. No one man should have so vast power ; 
it must be placed in the hands of an assembly, of many 
men. English history has been one long struggle to con- 
quer from the crown the right to control the revenues and 
make the laws. The English people have found that they 
could not trust this power to their kings. They have 
found that it can be safely given only to some body of 
men chosen by themselves. And that has been the expe- 
rience of all races and of all ages. 

How, then, is it as to the next feature, the choosing the 
men who are to hold power in the State by the chance of 
birth ? What kind of security have we that we shall get 
able and honest rulers ? 

Here, too, the system has been thoroughly tried. We 
need only take the teachings of experience. And, from 
experience, we find that this method of selecting rulers by 
the chance of birth cannot be depended on as a means for 
giving us the best men for high service in the State. 

The founders of royal houses have often been able men, 
men who have won their crowns in a struggle which called 
for power of some kind in the winner. But how often 
does it happen that their descendants are able men ? What 
kind of a permanent machinery for getting wise rulers is 
this hereditary system? In selecting the men who are 
to hold in their hands the destinies of a people, shall we 
choose a man who has himself done great deeds, or a man 
who is merely the son of his father? There can be no 
doubt as to the answer to this question. The hereditary 
system may have other good points. But as a means of 
selecting great men for a people's rulers, it has failed. We 



HEREDITARY MONARCHY. Lfl 

need only look at the experience of the English people to 
decide that point. 

A very able writer in the Edinburgh Review says :* 

" In the one hundred and fifty years, or nearly so, between the re- 
settlement of the Crown and the accession of her Majesty there have 
been seven reigns. Excepting William III., can it be said that any 
of the other six sovereigns were capable of being permanent prime 
ministers, and of directing the foreign policy of the nation ? Anne 
was governed by bedchamber women. George I. was a stranger to 
the language and laws of the country to which he was called in the 
decline of life. George II., incompetent himself, had the good fort- 
une during a part of his reign to be guided by a sensible wife. We 
were spared the reign of a King Frederick. The long life of George 

III. was obscured by mental disease. Of George IV. and William 

IV. we need say nothing. All these princes were well-meaning, and 
loyal to their trust. They were simply, one and all, incapable of 
forming a reasoned opinion upon any important question, civil or 
military. The earlier sovereigns of the House of Hanover, taking lit- 
tle or no interest in the domestic politics of this country, were chiefly 
concerned with foreign policy, and their foreign policy consisted en- 
tirely in using the resources of England for the protection of their 
petty electorate. George III. not only involved this country in a war 
which dismembered the empire, but he meddled with every detail of 
administration, and, by keeping the patronage of the Government in 
his own hands, was enabled to do a great deal of mischief. George 
IV., as Regent and King, found congenial ministers in the Percivals 
and Castlereaghs and Liverpools. The attempt of William IY. to 
assert his royal will, and its signal failure, are matters of recent his- 
tory. Even William III. valued the Crown of England only as it 
aided him in accomplishing the sole object of his life — the humilia- 
tion of France and the readjustment of the balance of power." 

But passing this point, whether the accident of birth is 
a wise method for the selection of the rulers of a nation, 



* "The Constitution and the Crown," Edinburgh Review, July, 
1878 (Amer. ed.), p. 149. 



20 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

what kind of training, for a man who is to wield power in 
the State, is the life of a royal prince ? Can there be, as 
a rule, anything worse ? Suppose him to have by nature 
great talents, can he, in any other position of life, be sur- 
rounded by influences more likely to make him a useless 
man ? He has his career made for him. He already has 
the first place in the State. He has nothing to gain. He 
is pressed by no need. He is tempted by every pleasure. 
It is almost certain that he is not an able man. It is a 
miracle if he ever becomes a useful one. And how often 
has it happened in the history of royal houses that kings 
have been only harmless ? The hereditary monarch, from 
his cradle, is taught that the people are his. The power 
which he holds in the State, as he is taught, is his — is his 
property. He inherited it from his father. He is to hand 
it down to his son. He makes it the aim of his life to in- 
crease it, with his other possessions, at his people's cost. 
If he is not an exceptionally upright man, he will use his 
power, as he does his other property, for his own gain and 
pleasure, and not for his people's good. How often has 
an English king been either a wise or a well-meaning ruler ? 
The great English novelist puts in the mouth of an Eng- 
lish gentleman these words : " Ours is the most loyal peo- 
ple in the world, surely : we admire our kings, and are faith- 
ful to them long after they have ceased to be true to us. 
'Tis a wonder, to any one who looks back at the history of 
the Stuart family, to think how they kicked their crowns 
away from them ; how they flung away chances after 
chances ; what treasures of loyalty they dissipated, and 
how fatally they were bent on consummating their own 
ruin. If ever men had fidelity, it was they ; if ever men 
squandered opportunity, 'twas they ; and of all the ene- 
mies they had, they themselves were the most fatal." The 



HEREDITARY MONARCHY. 21 

mere incident in the story of Esmond culminates at the 
BOene where England's hereditary king throws away a 
crown for a mistress. The picture is taken from the life. 
English kings for years warred against the English people, 
and while sitting on England's throne were in the pay of 
England's enemies. They knew no duty, and they kept 
no oath. Kings, emperors, and sultans, in all times and 
all countries, have used their power in one way. Their 
tyranny has been limited only by their people's endurance. 
When Englishmen praise English royalty, they forget their 
own history. They have floating in their minds some dim 
vision of monarchy without a monarch. There is no wrong- 
that a people could suffer that the English people have not 
suffered at the hands of tlieir kings. All the liberties the 
English people have ever had, they have had to conquer 
from those kings. 

"Whenever, too, a king is not himself an able man, he is 
always a puppet in the hands of other men and of women. 
A royal court is almost certainly a hot-bed of intrigue. 
Mr. Hallam says of the downfall of one of Queen Anne's 
ministries :* 

u Every one knows that this ministry was precipitated from power 
through the favorite's abuse of her ascendency, become at length in- 
tolerable to the most forbearing of queens and mistresses, conspiring 
with another intrigue of the bedchamber and the popular clamor 
against SacheverelFs impeachment. It seems rather a humiliating 
proof of the sway which the feeblest prince enjoys even in a limited 
monarchy, that the fortunes of Europe should have been changed by 
nothing more noble than the insolence of one waiting woman and 
the cunning of another. * * * The House of Bourbon would proba- 
bly not have reigned beyond the Pyrenees, but for Sarah and Abigail 
at Queen Anne's toilet." 

* * Hallam, " Const. Hist." vol. iii. p. 210. 



22 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

And Mr. Bagehot, one of the latest eulogists of English 
royalty, writes :• 

u Where there is no court, there can be no evil influences from a 
court. What these influences are, every one knows ; though no one, 
hardly the best and closest observer, can say with confidence and 
precision how great their effect is. Sir Robert Walpole, in language 
too coarse for our modern manners, declared, after the death of 
Queen Caroline, that he would pay no attention to the King's daugh- 
ters (' those girls,' as he calls them), but would rely exclusively on 
Madame de Walmoden, the King's mistress. 'The King,' says a 
writer in George IY.'s time, ' is in our favor, and what is more to the 
purpose, the Marchioness of Conyngham is so too.' Everybody knows 
to what sort of influences several Italian changes of government since 
the unity of Italy have been attributed. These sinister influences are 
likely to be most effective just when everything else is troubled, and 
when, therefore, they are particularly dangerous." 

Until the reign of the present sovereign, how often has 
it happened that English monarchy has been anything but 
the rule of royal favorites and royal mistresses ? 

But the most vicious point in a system of hereditary 
monarchy is the fact that the monarch is " irresponsible," 
that his power, if he misuse it, cannot be taken from him 
by any peaceable means, under the law. 

The hereditary monarch holds his power for his life. 
He may only lead a life of idle luxury, or he may waste 
the people's money in wild debauchery. He may use his 
power wisely. He may, from any motive, even from the 
best motives, use his power in such a way as to bring ruin 
to his people. Yet, under the law, there is no way to be rid 
of him. It may well be that the power of removing the 
head of the executive administration is one open to abuse. 
But it must somewhere exist. Is it safe to give to any 

* " The English Constitution," p. 140. 



HEREDITARY MONARCHY 29 

one man the command of the people's armies and the ap- 
pointment of all their officers, and yet have, under the law, 
no means of taking from that man his vast power, if the 
people's interests require it ? This fact, that, under a sys- 
tem of hereditary monarchy, the sovereign cannot be peace- 
ably removed, has been the cause of every armed revolution 
in every hereditary government the world has ever seen. 
When kingly tyranny goes beyond the bounds of endur- 
ance, then a remedy will be made, if none exists. If a 
royal tyrant cannot be removed peaceably, under the law, 
he will be removed forcibly, by war. Macaulay says r 
" During the hundred and sixty years which preceded the 
union of the Roses, nine kings reigned in England. Six 
of these nine kings were deposed ; five lost their lives as 
well as their crowns." What did this mean ? Simply, 
that the English people were compelled to make armed 
revolution part of the ordinary procedure under their sys- 
tem of government — for lack of any other remedy against 
the abuses of royal power. 

The English people have at last become weary of war, 
as a means of removing royal tyrants. They have found 
it too costly a method of changing the head of the execu- 
tive administration. They have found by the bitter expe- 
rience of centuries, after loyal devotion to their sovereigns, 
that they cannot trust power in the hands of hereditary 
kings. They have been driven, in self- protection, to take 
power from their " irresponsible " kings and put it in the 
hands of "responsible" ministers. They have found that 
a king cannot be trusted with even the choice of these min- 
isters. They allow him that choice only in form. 

The English people have had a thorough experience of 
hereditary monarchy, and they have at last learned — 

1. That the heads of their executive administration, the 



24 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

men who are to command their armies and navies and 
decide their foreign policy, must be selected, not by the 
chance of birth, but for fitness of some kind. 

Their ministers are, therefore, in an indirect way, chosen 
by the House of Commons. 

2. That these heads of the executive administration must 
be removable, under the law, for unfitness of some kind. 

The ministers are, therefore, in an indirect way, removed 
by the House of Commons. 

3. That no one man can be trusted with the supreme 
authority in the State, can be allowed to hold the purse 
and make the laws. 

That is a power which must be in the hands of an 
assembly, chosen by the people, or by some part of the 
people. 

English history is one series of revolutions against kings. 
It is, too, one long revolution against hereditary monarchy. 
This whole device of constitutional royalty, as it is called, 
is simply an attempt to keep the form of hereditary mon- 
archy without its substance. The English people keep 
their king, and strip him of his power. The king inherits 
the throne. The House of Commons choose and remove 
the ministers. 

That is the theory of the English Constitution at this 
day. That is the result which the English people have 
worked out in their political life. It is a result which 
they have reached against their wishes. The English peo- 
ple, more loyal than any other in the world's history to 
their hereditary kings, have, despite all the beliefs and feel- 
ings inherited from their fathers, been driven to destroy 
hereditary power. 

These, then, are the points which we gather from the 
history of hereditary monarchy, in England and elsewhere : 



HEREDITARY MONARCHY. 25 

1. Xo one man should be trusted with the supreme 
power in the State — the power of making* the laws and 
controlling the revenues. That should be only trusted to 
an assembly of men. 

2. To have one man at the head of the executive ad- 
ministration, if he be both able and honest, gives vigor to 
that administration. 

3. The men who are to hold power in the State must 
be selected, not by birth, but for their fitness. 

4. The men who are to hold power in the State should 
be " responsible," as the phrase is — that is, there should be 
some means, under the law, of removing them for unfitness. 

2 



?6 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 



CHAPTER III. 

CONSTITUTIONAL ROYALTY UNFINISHED REVOLUTION. 

There has grown up in England a form of government 
which is called " constitutional monarchy " or " constitu- 
tional royalty." And very many men, even in the United 
States, think that this " constitutional royalty," or some- 
thing in some points like it, is, on the whole, the best form 
of government the world has yet seen. 

This constitutional royalty, as far as here concerns this 
inquiry, has these main points — 

1. Parliament, or the House of Commons, is the su- 
preme supervisory power in the State. It votes the sup- 
plies and makes the laws. 

2. Whatever may be the law, in practice the king's 
ministers, and not the king, are the chief executive. 

3. These ministers, though in law they are the king's 
servants, are "responsible," not to the king, but to the 
Legislature. They are, in an indirect way, appointed and 
removed by a vote of the House of Commons. 

One further point is to be noted. 

These ministers have two distinct sets of duties — ■ 

1. They are the heads of the executive administration. 

2. They are too, in effect, the heads of the Legislature. 
They sit in the Legislature, and propose all important 
measures of legislation. 

And this point, that the executive minister has also 



CONSTITUTIONAL ROYALTY. %1 

lative duties, will be found to be the most important 

feature in the whole system. 

For the purposes of this examination, it will be assumed 
that the legislative work cannot be better done than it is 
done under the English Government. 

But how is it as to the executive administration? How 
perfect a piece of machinery is that I 

It is sometimes said that the English Government may 
not be perfect in point of form ; it may not be such a 
machinery as a theorizer would devise on paper ; but it 
" works well ;" it is practical ; it is something which has 
"grown," and is thoroughly fitted to the needs of the 
English people. 

How true is this? How does this machinery "work?" 
Let us take at the outset this " practical " point. 

Let us especially examine the "working" of the Eng- 
lish War- office. It is a part of the system, no better and 
no worse than the other parts. The last time it was real- 
ly tried was in the Crimean war. Let ns see how it stood 
the test. 

Sir Garnet AVolseley says :* 

M The history of the Crimean war is still fresh in the memory of 
those who took part in it. Xever was any expedition planned by a 
home government with more reckless ignorance of war and its re- 
quirements than that which landed at Eupatoria. At the beginning 
of the campaign our Treasury was as parsimonious as it was subse- 
quently lavish in expenditure. About twenty-four thousand British 
soldiers — no finer body of men have ever worn her Majesty's uniform 
— were hurled ashore without the means of carrying their wounded, 
and even without sufficient tools to bury their dead. British disci- 
pline in two or three hard-fought battles won for England a brilliant 
but a short-lived success ; and when, through the military ignorance 
of those in Downing Street who planned the campaign, that devoted 

Nineteenth Century, March, 1878, p. 436 et $></. 



28 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

little army dwindled down almost to a handful of half-starved scare- 
crows, those who had starved us through their ignorant parsimony 
sent out commissioners, w r hose avowed business it was to select a 
victim from among our generals on whom to cast the blame. They 
selected the ablest of them as their scape-goat, and held him up to 
public opprobrium because he had not made a road from Balaklava 
to the camp, although they knew full well he had neither the tools 

nor the labor at his disposal for such an undertaking." 

* * * % * * * 

" I have alluded to the military ignorance of our ministers in the 
Crimean war : here is an example of it. A letter was read in the 
House of Parliament one evening from an officer in the field, in 
w^hich he referred to the want of all means for conveying our sick 
and wounded to the ships for embarkation, adding that our army 
had to depend upon the French cacolets lent to us for that purpose. 
The English minister who was responsible for army affairs at once 
got up and indignantly denied the statement, adding that he knew it 
to be untrue, because he had the best authority for asserting posi- 
tively that there were a hundred hospital panniers at that moment 
in the Crimea. He might just as well have said there were so many 
toothpicks there ; as a hospital pannier, which he evidently thought 
was a conveyance of some sort, is nothing more than a wicker-work 
basket, made in a peculiar manner, for the reception of medicines, 
operating instruments, and other medical appliances. The page of 
Hansard which records that reply is the gravest of all possible sat- 
ires upon our war administration of that time." 

" Curious stories without end might Ibe told to illustrate my state- 
ment as to the inefficiency of many of those who composed the staff 
which originally embarked in 1854. Here is one as it was told me by 
an eye-witness : while the army was in Turkey, before it left for the 
Crimea, an important military operation had to be undertaken. A 
few days before that named for the operation, my friend went to a 
staff-officer in high position, who was his immediate superior, and 
whose duty it was to make all the necessary arrangements, and to 
draw up instructions for all the departments and general officers con- 
cerned, and asked if he had any orders to give. The reply w r as : 
4 No ; I have not yet thought over the matter, but I will see to it by- 
and-by.' The next day the question was repeated with a similar re- 



CONSTITUTIONAL ROYALTY. 29 

suit, and upon the third day — the day before this very complicated 
and difficult operation was to have taken place — as my friend re- 
peated his question he saw that his superior was whittling a piece 
of stick. That superior was an amiable old gentleman and an ex- 
cellent carpenter. He listened calmly to my friend, who was rather 
excited, seeing that nothing was ready for the move, and that no at- 
tempt had as yet been made to prepare for it. After a pause, the 
man on whom for the moment a great national responsibility rested 

looked up and said: 'Perhaps, Captain , you do not know what 

I am doing.' ' Xo, sir,' replied my friend. ' Well,' said the old gen- 
eral, ' upon strolling about here this morning, I perceived that there 
was no latch or bolt to Lord Raglan's cupboard, and I am making 
one, as an agreeable surprise for him.' Here was an army about to 
begin a most serious undertaking, the preparations and arrangements 
for which could only be made by this high official ; but so utterly 
was he incapable of taking in the serious responsibility that rested 
on him, so ignorant was he of the duties attached to his position, 
that he employed his time in carpentering, when all his intellect, all 
his energies, should have been devoted to the great duty which de- 
volved upon him." 

He savs farther :* 

" During the epoch I have referred to [the period before the Cri- 
mean war], the army of England was unworthy of being classed as a 
fighting implement fit to be employed against an enemy more formi- 
dable than a Kaffir or an Asiatic, and, even when so engaged, gained 
its ends always with difficulty, and not always without discredit and 
disaster. It was a police force dressed in the guise of soldiers. It 
was a body — a fine muscular body certainly — without a soul. All 
ranks were full of courage — without doubt the first and greatest fac- 
tor in military excellence — but all other warlike instincts were want- 
ing. Its generals, men of Peninsular experience, were old in body 
and old-fashioned in mind, while its regimental officers were entirely 
ignorant of their profession. They would have made the finest pri- 
vate soldiers in the world, but they were as little acquainted with the 
art and science of war as the rank and file they were commissioned 
to lead." 

* Xineteenth Century, January, 18*78, p. 2. 



30 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

Let us look somewhat farther. An English army was 
sent to the Crimea to invest and capture a great strong- 
hold. The general in command knew nothing of the num- 
bers of the enemy he was to attack, nor of the country 
where he w r as to make his campaign. After he had been 
in the Crimea for four or five months, it w r as found that 
this fortress, which he was to have invested and captured, 
had regular communications with the main-land by a bridge. 
This bridge had been built four or five years. But no one 
in the English army or War Office had so much as heard 
of it, until it w r as found on a map " sent home by the cap- 
tain of a vessel w 7 ho learned of it from some of the Tar- 
tars !" Men w T ere dying in the English army by thousands 
for want of the food and clothing which lay less than ten 
miles away from them. The road on which the army de- 
pended for all its supplies had broken up. It had from 
the beginning been certain that it w 7 ould do so. There 
w r as one man in the whole world w T ho should have seen all 
these things beforehand, and who should have done some- 
thing to hinder them — the head of the Eno-lish War Office. 
He was the one man in the w^orld who knew nothing of 
them, and w 7 ho did nothing to set them right, even after 
he knew the condition in which the army was. He him- 
self testified, before a House of Commons committee, that 
he had " no official information " that his troops were ill- 
fed, but that he did at last, " in common with the rest of 
the world," " become painfully aware of it." He could not 
tell when it was that he knew of the breaking up of the 
road on which depended the safety of his army ; " it was 
one of those facts that unfortunately grow upon one as 
events follow one another !" He seemed in some doubt 
as to whether the road really had broken up, but finally 
toiled to the conclusion that it had, inasmuch as " it w 7 as 



CONSTITUTIONAL ROYALTY. ;;i 

Been by its consequence* that things were not carried to 
the front." He was asked if lie took any steps to have a 
road made as soon as lie heard of the failure of the old 
one, and his answer was, " No, I cannot say that I did." 
That was a thing, he said, that it was " absolutely neces- 
sary to leave to officers on the spot." 

The " officers on the spot," it would seem, thought it 
a thing which it was "absolutely necessary to leave" to 
the War Office at home ; for they did nothing*. And there 
was an English army, with food at their elbows, actually 
starving, because no one knew wdiose duty it w r as to feed 
them. If they had left their digestive organs where their 
supplies were, at the other end of the road, affairs might 
have gone on well enough. But that point, too, had been 
overlooked.* 

* The Duke of Newcastle testified before the Roebuck Committee : 
"Qu. 14,426. And I am bound to say that some four or five 

months afterward we ascertained, what was not before known in 
this country, or elsewhere before that time, that the Russians had an- 
other means of access into the Crimea, some miles to the eastward 
of Perekop, by a bridge * * * a bridge which was commenced by the 
Russians some four or Jive years ago,hy which they had obtained a 
good road. * * * I have seen a plan which was sent home by the 
captain of a vessel, who obtained the information from some of the 
Tartars. * * * 

* * * " Is there no other information ? — No." 

* * # * * * * 

" Qu. 14,588. Were you ever informed that the troops were ill-fed, 
and that the horses had little or insufficient forage ? — A. Of course 
I received that information. As I said before, in common icith the 
rest of the world, I wen painfully aware of it. 

"Qu. 14,589. I mean officially ? — A. Ko ; I think not. 

"Qu. 14,590. You obtained all that information from the news- 
papers, did you? — A. So; from complaints principally from y> 
that had suffered. 



32 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

That is, as I believe, a fair picture of the way in which 
the affairs of the English War Office and army were man- 
aged during the Crimean war. 

But it may be asked, Were there not then exceptional 
circumstances which created the condition of things which 
then existed? Was not the ignorance of English army 
officers to be assigned to some cause not connected with 
the system of Parliamentary Government? 

No doubt much of the ignorance of English armv offi- 
cers was the result of the purchase system, under which 
young gentlemen of rank, who knew everything about fox- 
hunting and nothing about war, were allowed to buy with 
good English sovereigns the privilege of wearing her Maj- 
esty's uniform, receiving her Majesty's pay, and throwing 
away the lives of her Majesty's loyal subjects. No doubt 

" Qu. 14,591. You were not informed that the failure on the part 
of the commissariat to feed the troops was occasioned by the failure 
of other departments in their duties ? — A. Not officicdly. 

" Qu. 14,592. When did you first receive information of the break- 
up of the road from Balaklava to the camp ? — A. I do not remember 
the exact date ; it was one of those facts that unfortunately grow upon 
one as events follow one another ; and it icas seen by its consequences 
that things were not carried to the front. 

" Qu. 14,593. Can you tell whether any information was given you 
of the probable failure of the road, before the failure took place? — 
A. Certainly not. 

" Qu. 14,594. So that you, remained altogether in the dark as to the 
chance of the non-supply of the troops arising from the failure of the 
road? — A. Yes. 

" Qu. 14,595. So soon as you heard of the failure of the road, you 
took steps, did you not, to have a road made of some sort or another ? 
— A. iVo, / cannot say that I did ; because it was impossible for me 
to be able to judge whether the thing was practicable then. There 
are things which it is absolutely necessary to leave to officers on the 
spot.'* * 



CONSTITUTIONAL ROYALTY. 

they risked their own lives bravely enough. Bat, as [ 
maintain, the condition of the English War Office, as it 

was then developed and disclosed, was the certain and nat- 
ural result of what men call the English system of " Par- 
liamentary Government." 

Let us examine it, and sec what kind of a machinery it 
is, how it is fitted for accomplishing the two purposes of — 

1. Getting in the executive service the best men for 
that service. 

2. Getting from them their best work in that service. 
The head of the War Office in England is selected, in the 

vast majority of instances, not because he knows anything 
about the army, nor because he has ever shown any ad- 
ministrative talent, nor because he has ever had any ad- 
ministrative training, nor because he has proved himself, 
even in Parliament, to be a ripe statesman, but for the 
one reason that, at that particular time, he, with some other 
men, can brino- together a certain number of votes in the 
House of Commons on some matters of general legisla- 
tion. And these matters of legislation, nine times out of 
ten, have nothing whatever to do with the affairs of the 
army. In short, the heads of the executive offices are 
chosen not because they are fit for their executive work, 
but always for fitness they have shown for something else. 

But after the ministers are chosen, how does the ma- 
chinery work as to the second point, the getting from 
these men at the head of the executive departments their 
best work in those departments ? 

At the outset, we have the point, that these heads of 
departments have two distinct kinds of work to do, leg- 
islative and executive. These two kinds of work are ut- 
terly unlike, and call for different men to do them. Not 
once in a hundred years is there any one man who has the 



34 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

powers that fit him to do them both. One alone is all 
that a man can find time or strength for. And if one 
man tries to do both sets of duties, it is certain that he 
will not do both well, and the chance is that he will do 
both ill. 

This is not a matter that rests on theoretical considera- 
tions or conjecture. But on this point we have the ex- 
perience of one of England's greatest ministers. Mr. Mar- 
tin tells us, in his life of the Prince Consort :* 

" It has long been accepted or understood that it was Sir Robert 
Peel's opinion, in common with that of Mr. Canning, that the Prime- 
minister should be in the House of Commons. Such was his opin- 
ion for a great part of his career; but his experience of the last 
four years had led him to a different conclusion. * * * The amount 
of work imposed upon the first minister in the House of Commons, 
in addition to what he had to go through elsewhere, was too great 
for any human strength." 

That ground of itself would seem to be enough to de- 
cide the question, whether executive ministers should sit 
in a legislature. 

But assume, for the moment, that the heads of the differ- 
ent executive offices, although selected for none but Par- 
liamentary reasons, were the best men that could be found 
for their executive offices. Assume that they had, each 
of them, wonderful abilities for both kinds of work. As- 
sume, too, that they could have the time and strength to 
do both well. There is another point. The system is so 
framed as to make it certain that these men at the heads 
of the executive offices will give their time and thought, 
in the main, to work in Parliament, and not to the work 
of their executive offices. 

* Martin's " Life of Prince Consort," vol. i. p. 266. 



(INSTITUTIONAL ROYALTY. 85 

The one point which is commonly made by men who 
admire English Parliamentary Government is, that under it 
ministers are made "responsible" to the House of Com- 
mons. So, indeed, they arc. 

But for what? 

The War Minister of England is held " responsible," not 
for what lie himself has or has not done, but for some- 
thing done or not done by the ministry as a body. Indi- 
vidual responsibility for individual acts is destroyed. 

And, as one member of the ministry, he is held respon- 
sible, in the vast majority of instances, not for work done 
by him or them in the affairs of the War Office, but for 
something done in the House of Commons. It may, in- 
deed, happen that a ministry would be driven to resign 
for mismanagement of the War Office or the Foreign Of- 
fice. Nearly always, however, the head of the War Office, 
as one of the ministry, goes out of office, not for anything 
that concerns the management of the army, but because 
the ministry have lost votes in the House of Commons 
on some matter of Eoman Catholic Emancipation, or the 
Irish Church, or a House Tax. 

In other words, England's War Minister leaves the War 
Office, not for what he has done ill in the War Office as 
to army affairs, but for what other men have done ill, in 
another place, as to other things. 

Will such a system as that get good work in the execu- 
tive offices? 

Suppose a mill-owner were hiring a superintendent, and 
were to say to him, " I employ you because you know how 
to manage my mill ; I shall keep you in charge of it just 
so long as you manage it well, and no longer: meantime 
you will be w T ell paid in money and in reputation " — there 
would be some possibility that he might have the work of 



36 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

his mill well done. Suppose, on the other hand, he were 
to say, " I do not employ you because you know how to 
manage my mill. I am well aware that you have never 
seen the inside of a mill in your life. I expect you to 
spend your whole time in the town -meeting. Do your 
work in the mill well or ill, that is not the point which 
will decide me to keep you in my service. But the mo- 
ment you cannot bring me seventy-five votes in that town- 
meeting, I shall find a new superintendent."- That course, 
one would think, would not work well with mills ; nor does 
it with governments. 

It needs no very keen brain to see that if, in order to 
keep office, men must keep votes in the House of Com- 
mons, it is to this keeping votes in the House of Com- 
mons that they will give their time and thought. 

To sum up this branch of the matter, then, the War 
Minister of England, or the head of the Foreign Office, or 
of any other executive office, is always a man taken from 
Parliament, by Parliament, for work done in Parliament. 
For keeping his executive office, he depends on work to be 
done in Parliament ; and there it is certain he will do his 
best work. 

Wot only is that the natural result of the system, but it 
is the way in which the system actually works. Their 
War Minister has always spent his time in managing the 
House of Commons. He has always been made War Min- 
ister for the reason that he could manage the House of 
Commons. 

If there has ever been in England, as Englishmen be- 
lieve, a great war minister, it was Pitt. If ever there was 
a man who believed in the present English " system " of 
Parliamentary Government, it was Macaulay. Let us see 



CONSTITUTIONAL ROYALTY. 37 

what kind of a war minister Pitt was, on the testimony of 
Macaulay. He says :* 

11 Great as Titt's abilities were, his military administration was that 
of a driveller. lie was at the head of a nation engaged in a struggle 
for life and death, of a nation eminently distinguished by all the 
physical and all the moral qualities which make excellent soldiers. 
The resources at his command were unlimited. The Parliament was 
even more ready to grant him men and money than he was to ask 
for them. In such an emergency, and with such means, such a 
statesman as Richelieu, as Louvois, as Chatham, as Wellesley, would 
have created in a few months one of the finest armies in the world, 
and would have soon discerned and brought forward generals worthy 
to have commanded such an army. * * * But the fact is that, after 
eight years of war, after a vast destruction of life, after an expendi- 
ture of wealth far exceeding the expenditure of the American war, 
of the Seven Years' War, of the war of the Austrian succession, and 
of the war of the Spanish succession united, the English army, under 
Pitt, was the laughing-stock of all Europe. It could not boast of one 
brilliant exploit. It had never shown itself on the Continent but to 
be beaten, chased, forced to re-embark, or forced to capitulate. To 
take some sugar island in the West Indies, to scatter some mob of 
half-naked Irish peasants, such were the most splendid victories won 
by the British troops under Pitt's auspices." 

Such was, according to Macaulay, the fitness of the man 
for the duties of his place. But how did he get and keep 
his place ? Let us learn from the same authority : 

" While his schemes were confounded, while his predictions were 
falsified, while the coalitions which he had labored to form were fall- 
ing to pieces, while the expeditions which he had sent forth at an 
enormous expense were ending in rout and disgrace, * * * his author- 
ity over the House of Commons was constantly becoming more and 
more absolute. There was his empire. There were his victories, his 
Lodi and his Areola, his Rivoli and his Marengo. If some great mis- 
fortune, a pitched battle lost by the allies, the annexation of a new 

* Encyclopaedia Britannica Article "Pitt." 



38 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

department to the French Republic, a sanguinary insurrection in Ire- 
land, a mutiny in the fleet, a panic in the city, a run on the bank, 
had spread dismay through the ranks of his majority, that dismay 
lasted only till he rose from the treasury bench, drew up his haughty 
head, stretched his arm with commanding gesture, and poured forth, 
in deep and sonorous tones, the lofty language of inextinguishable 
hope and inflexible resolution. Thus, through a long and calamitous 
period, every disaster that happened without the walls of Parliament was 
regularly followed by a triumph within them. At length he had no 
longer an opposition to encounter. * * * It is true that Addington 
might easily have been a better war minister than Pitt, and could 
not possibly have been a worse. But Pitt had cast a spell on the 
public mind. The eloquence, the judgment, the calm and disdainful 
firmness which he had, during many years, displayed in Parliament, 
deluded the world into the belief that he must be eminently quali- 
fied to superintend every department of politics ; and they imagined, 
even after the miserable failures of Dunkirk, of Quiberon, and of 
the Helder, that he was the only statesman who could cope with 
Xapoleon." 

That is not an exceptional case. That is the way in 
which the system has been working ever since the English 
people have had what they call "Parliamentary Govern- 
ment." That is what the English people have, " Parlia- 
mentary Government," and not executive administration. 
They have never a war minister — nothing but a leader of 
the House. 

That is not all. Could these ministers know that they 
would certainly hold their places for even four years, there 
might be a possibility that they would learn something of 
their executive work. They never have a certainty that 
they will hold office for a month. How soon it may at 
any time happen that the English ministry in office will be 
defeated in Parliament on a vote as to Church discipline, 
and will be therefore compelled to resign, no man can tell. 
It may be in less than six months after they take office, or 



CONSTITUTIONAL ROYALTY. 

it may be after the experience of a few years lias given 
them something really like an acquaintance with their 
official duties. It makes no difference which it is, whether 
the time has been long or short, whether the ministers 
have become through experience useful public servants, or 
whether they still blaze in the full glory of their pristine 
ignorance. 

From 1*762 to 1S68 there were thirty-four administra- 
tions. Of these thirty-four administrations eleven lasted 
less than one year, five others less than two years, and five 
others less than three years. Only three of the thirty-four 
lasted longer than six years. 

Under such a system experience and training cannot be 
had. One thing is absolutely certain : however much the 
War Minister may know about the Irish Church and the 
House Tax, he will know nothing about army affairs. 

But it maybe said, that although the heads in the Brit- 
ish administrative offices may be ignorant of department 
matters, yet the subordinates (especially since the adoption 
of the Civil Service rules) are well trained, and the chief 
can always have the advice and knowledge of experienced 
men under him. 

But is this enough? The men who believe in Civil 
Service Reform urge it because they have found that men 
in government service, as well as elsewhere, must have 
training and experience. But it is not enough to have 
only the subordinates able. The man at the head, who 
has the real power, must, of all men, be the man of capac- 
ity and training, or there can be no efficient administra- 
tion. These subordinates may do mere routine work very 
well. They will do nothing but routine work. If, in or- 
der to get good work, it is found that even the under- 
lings must have capacity for their especial duties, and 



40 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

must, above all, have training-, all the more important is 
it for the chiefs. Can they alone be ignorant and un- 
skilled? 

It may be said that these ministers at the head of the 
war and naval offices can, in all matters of importance, get 
advice from army and navy officers. But suppose army 
and navy officers do not agree in their advice. Who is 
to decide ? No one can decide but the man who has in law 
the power. Of all the devices in government machinery, 
none is so dangerous as that of giving power to a man on 
the expectation that he is never to use it, but is in all 
things to be guided by other men wiser than himself. 
Men who have power do use it, and always will. It was 
by a direct order from the ministry that the British troops 
made the expedition to the Crimea, to attempt the reduc- 
tion of a great stronghold, without organization and with- 
out supplies. Sir Charles Xapier said at a public banquet 
in London, " I state it to the public, and I wish them to 
know, that had I followed the advice of Sir James Graham 
[First Lord of the Admiralty], I should most inevitably 
have left the British fleet behind me in the Baltic."* Sir 
Charles meant, of course, that he would have been left 
there with the fleet. 

So far, then, as we have now seen, the natural result of 
the English system of government, as it concerns the ex- 
ecutive administration, is this : It selects the heads of ad- 
ministration entirely with a view to their fitness for other 
work. It makes it certain that they will do that other 
work. It makes it certain that they will not have the 
knowledge or training needed for their department duties 
when they come into office. It makes it as nearly certain 

* Martin's "Life of Prince Consort," vol. iii. p. 131. 



CONSTITUTIONAL ROYALTY. 4] 

as it can that they will never get that knowledge and train- 
ing after they are in office. 

But another point is to be considered. There has never 
been any way of getting any vigorous or efficient admin- 
istration anywhere, in governments, or mills, or railroads, 
other than by having one man at the head, giving him 
power, and holding him responsible for accomplishing re- 
sults. No doubt that one man must be under proper su- 
pervision and control. So, too, must an executive com- 
mittee of many men. But, to have good administration 
in a government, there must be at the head of each ex- 
ecutive department one man, with power, who is held re- 
sponsible for the working of the whole of that depart- 
ment, and for nothing else. And there must be over all 
the departments one man, w 7 ith power, who is held respon- 
sible for the working of all the executive departments, 
and for nothing else. It is a fact well learned by all men 
who have ever had to do with affairs of any kind, that 
to have vigor you must have pow<er in the hands of 
one man, and to have responsibility you must have the 
responsibility of one man. When we come to supervision, 
to the general ordering of the general course of affairs, 
we need something else. Then we must have counsel, of 
many minds; but for execution we must have force, of 
one will. 

Now, English executive administration has no head. 
The result is, they have only confusion. 

I do not rest for this point on my own opinion. I am 
well aware that a man who undertakes to discuss the 
working of a government of which he has seen nothing 
must be ignorant, and is probably mistaken. But on this 
point we have the highest authority, that of Sir James 
Fitzjames Stephen, the clearest thinker (to my mind) 



42 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

among Englishmen of this day on matters of English gov- 
ernment. He has written :* 

"Long before the Crimean war, Sir James Stephen, who, in 1847, 
left the Colonial Office, of the permanent establishment of which he 
had been the head for many years, used to say continually that the 
war departments were so organized that if a European war occurred 
they would utterly break down. The Colonial Office of those days 
was the office of Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. At 
the time in question I believe there was not, and had not been for 
many years, a single soldier in it. Its functions, and those of the 
Secretary at War and the Commander-in-chief, were so strangely in- 
termixed that I believe no one knew distinctly how they were related 
to each other." * * * 

" If it be asked what Parliamentary Government has to do with 
this result, I answer, it has practically destroyed all unity in adminis- 
tration, by reducing the office of king to a cipher, and by replacing 
him by a set of ministers who shift backwards and forwards, who 
are equal among themselves, and are little kings in their own de- 
partments, and who are, therefore, neither competent nor inclined to 
attempt to give distinctness and unity to the whole system ."f 

He says further : J 

" This arrangement does not appear favorable to a vigorous central 
control of the different departments. It puts the Prime Minister in 
a position greatly less powerful than that of a king, and I believe a 
king of some sort, a king who really governs, and it may be for a lim- 
ited time, to be essential to good administration. * * * 

" Facts known to all the world strongly suggest that the effect of 
the Parliamentary system upon the executive government of the 
country has been to deprive the king of all real power, and, by the 
introduction of fictions and the creation of unconnected offices, to 
convert the executive government into an aggregate of isolated insti- 
tutions, having no common centre, no clear and well-defined constitu- 
tion or connection with each other, and no permanent heads." 

But how, it may be said, has the English nation won all 
its great successes ? 

* Contemporary Review, Dec, 1873, p. 15. f Ibid. p. 16. \ Ibid. p. 14. 



CONSTITUTIONAL ROYALTY. 4:; 

English victories have been won by the dogged courage 

of English soldiers and sailors, by the genius of single Eng- 
lish men, the Marlboroughs and the Olives, in spite of the 
most wonderful mismanagement of the home administra- 
tion. The English people pour out their lives and treasure 
for years in a war to crush a foreign people or overthrow 
a foreign tyrant, and at last find a Wellington or a Nelson 
to lead their armies and their fleets. But the Wellingtons 
and Nelsons have, in the incompetence of the home offices, 
foes more terrible than the Napoleons and foreign armies. 
Campaigns now are decided in a great measure by the 
length of the purse. But no treasury can long stand such 
enormous drains as are in these years brought on a people 
by feeble management with good intentions. There must 
be not only generals in the field, but there must be great 
ministers behind them at home. Either alone will not be 
enough. England was able for years to keep all Europe 
in her pay, and at last to wear out Napoleon. But how 
would it be now, in this age of railroads, if the English 
people were to have a war with the Prussian armies under 
Von Moltke? A campaign and a war may in these days 
be easily decided by the genius of the war minister at 
home, as well as of the captain in the field, and be decided 
with amazing swiftness. Can the English people longer 
take risks like these ? 

Moreover, how can such a thing be possible, as any vig- 
orous stable policy in the War Office, the Foreign Office, or 
anywhere else, when ministers are going in and out of of- 
fice every six months or every two years ? No one can 
tell when there will be a change in the ministry — when 
there will be a new "government," as the phrase is — nor 
can human wit tell who will be the men at the head of it. 
The English nation may be in the middle of a great war; 



44 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

the nrinistr}^ blunder in the House of Commons on some 
revenue question. There must be a new war minister and 
a new head of the Foreign Office. No doubt any system 
is absurd which makes the chief executive go out of office 
at the end of four years, when the nation may be in ex- 
treme peril, when a change in the head of the government 
may mean ruin. But under such a system men do at 
least know when the change is to be made, and can per- 
haps make some preparations for it beforehand. Indeed, 
in a time of great national danger there would be at least 
a possibility that the executive, if he were a great man, 
might be re-elected. But changes of executive adminis- 
tration in England are decided by nothing but a parlia- 
mentary dice-box. 

The hap-hazard way in which the chief executive office 
in the English Government is made a shuttlecock for Par- 
liamentary politicians, is put very pleasantly in a letter 
written to his brother by Lord Palmerston, just after he 
became prime minister in 1855 :* 

"February 15th, 1855. 
" My dear William, — 

1 Quod nemo promittere Divum 

Auderet volvenda dies en attulit ultro.* 

"A month ago, if any one had asked me to say what was one of 
the most improbable events, I should have said my being Prime Min- 
ister. Aberdeen was there, Derby was head of one great party, John 
Russell of the other, and yet, in about ten days' time, they all gave 
way like straws before the wind, and so here am /, writing to you 
from Downing Street, as First Lord of the Treasury." 

But there are certain arguments which are often urged 
in favor of the English system of government which 
should perhaps be more fully considered. 

* Ashley's " Life of Lord Palmerston," vol. ii. p. 76. 



CONSTITUTIONAL ROYALTY. 45 

It is said that ministers should sit in the Legislature, in 
order that they may there be held responsible for their ad- 
ministrative action, and that they may there be called on 
to explain and defend that action. 

So far as a legislature needs information as to the work 
of the executive offices, it can be much better given by 
written reports than by oral answers to hasty questions. 
In fact, information which is sufficiently full to be of any 
real service to a legislature cannot be given in a mere de- 
bate or a mere oral colloquy. It must be given in the 
form of written reports. If anything more than the re- 
ports be needed, legislative committees can easily send for 
witnesses with books and papers. Members of the Legis- 
lature on its floor can no doubt put sharp questions and 
get sharp answers. But for giving exhaustive informa- 
tion, that is a process which is very insufficient. More- 
over, if a minister must spend his time on the floor of the 
Legislature, it is an impossible thing that he should have 
the thorough knowledge of the affairs of his department 
which will enable him to give any accurate information 
of its doings. And which is the better, that a minister 
should have a policy which will defend itself, or that lie 
should spend his time in the Legislature defending a poor 
one ■ And his policy certainly will be a poor one if he 
uses his hours outside of his office. His time should be 
spent in making a policy. If he makes a good one he can 
leave its defence to other men. This system of double 
duties never has worked well, and it never will. 

But it is said, if ministers sit in the Legislature, and 
go out of office on a vote of the Legislature, we secure 
harmony between the legislative and executive depart- 
ments. It is said that the men who shape the legis- 
lation of the country should properly and wisely have in- 



46 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

trusted to them the w6rk of carrying that legislation into 
effect. 

But if it be really an important point, that the men who 
propose and pass legislative measures should be the men 
intrusted with the execution of those measures, we have 
a new difficulty. Suppose a ministry remains in office for 
a long time. It has during that long time passed many 
measures. According to this argument, it is this very min- 
istry which has framed and passed all these measures which 
should have their execution. And the longer they have 
been in office, the more necessary it is, as far as this point 
is concerned, that they should stay in office. As a fact, 
however, no matter how many measures the ministry may 
have passed, no matter how wise those measures may have 
been, or how necessary it may be for the successful work- 
ing of those many and wise measures that the ministry 
should stay in office, so soon as they are defeated in one 
important measure of legislation, out they must go. If 
they have been long in office, presumptively both their 
legislation and their administration during that long period 
have been in harmony with the views of the Legislature 
and of the country; and they have gained experience in 
both departments. 

Moreover, the question on which the ministers resign is 
usually not a matter of legislation passed by their oppo- 
nents, but one which they fail to pass themselves — which 
neither party has passed. So that, instead of the adminis- 
tration of legislative measures being put in the hands of 
the authors of those measures, it is as matter of practice 
put in the hands of their enemies. And in the case sup- 
posed, when a ministry has been long in office, although 
the whole point of the system, as it is generally stated, is 
to have as executive officers men who are in harmonv with 



CONSTITUTIONAL ROYALTY, 47 

a majority of Parliament on matters of legislation, tlio 
ministry have to resign because they disagree with a ma- 
jority of the House on one question, to make way for men 
who disagree with a majority of the House on five hundred. 

It may be said that the question on which the ministry 
disagrees with the House is the latest one, and therefore 
presumably the most important. But is the latest ques- 
tion always or often the most important, either presumably 
or as a matter of fact ! It may be, and often is, a question 
of the very least importance, that is, in comparison with 
the lono* series of measures that have o-one before it. 

But what is the real weight of this argument that the 
executive officers, the ministers, should be "in harmony " 
with the majority of the Legislature ? " In harmony " as 
to what ? Is it very material to have your war minister 
" in harmony " with the Legislature as to matters of Church 
discipline, or as to anything other than his administration 
of the affairs of the War Office? Can any man be so in- 
sane as to argue that a war minister like Bismarck or 
Y<>n Moltkc would wisely be removed from his office for 
his opinions on a revenue bill ? 

That, however, is the English " system." 

Undoubtedly there should be provisions for removing 
the head of the War Office for inefficient management of 
the affairs of the War Office. But that is precisely what 
the English "system" does not give. Neither the ap- 
pointment nor the removal of the officer, in the vast ma- 
jority of instances, is made to depend on, or have any con- 
nection whatever with, the efficient administration of the 
duties of the office. Can this be wise ? 

far, we have seen how the executive administration 
goes on under the English Bystem of government, when 
the English people are so fortunate as to haw a govern- 



48 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

merit. But they do not always have one. England may 
be in the midst of a great war, fighting for her life. The 
ministry is beaten in the House of Commons, and resigns. 
There must be a new head of the War Office. Some one 
has to "form a government." Some one man must be 
found who can, at that particular time, with other men, 
combine a majority of votes in the House of Commons. 

Now it is not always the case that any one man can 
be found who will take this task upon him, or who can 
accomplish it, if he does ; for every man in Parliament 
knows that, if he takes office, he cannot hold it for a day, 
unless he can have his Parliamentary majority at his back. 
It may be that the men who are needed will not combine. 
Meantime there may be great questions of foreign policy, 
or of civil or military administration, pressing for a wise 
decision without delay. The safety of the nation may de- 
pend on the action or inaction of an hour, and there is no 
official in existence who can act. And when the next of- 
ficial comes into existence, it is certain that his action can- 
not, unless by a miracle, be wise. 

This is not matter of imagination nor of antiquity — it 
is the statement of the actual working of English govern- 
ment machinery at this day. And it seems such a sur- 
prising condition in which to find the executive adminis- 
tration of a great nation, that a certain amount of detail 
will be used. 

In February, 1851, the ministry of Lord John Russell 
resigned, and the resignation came in this way : On the 
14th February the ministry had a severe contest on the 
bill to prevent the assumption of territorial titles by Ro- 
man Catholic bishops, and carried the bill under a strong 
opposition. They lost strength afterward on a question 
as to the repeal of the Window Tax. They Avere then de- 



CONSTITUTIONAL ROYALTY. 49 

feated on a motion carried by the opposition, for leave to 
bring in a bill to assimilate the county franchise to that 
of the boroughs ; and this notwithstanding Lord John 
Russell had given his assurance that he would himself 
submit, at the opening of the next session, a measure for 
the extension of the suffrage. The ministry thereupon 
resigned. 

It was on the 2 2d February that the resignation took 
place. 

The Queen sent for Lord Stanley, and requested him to 
"form a government." And he declined, saying that he 
thought it difficult, in the existing state of parties , to form 
a stable government, though he w T ould try, if again called 
upon by her Majesty. And he recommended that an at- 
tempt should be made to strengthen the present govern- 
ment or to reconstruct it. 

Lord Aberdeen was sent for, and was requested to form 
a government. And he declined, giving, among other rea- 
sons, his conviction that no ministry could stand which re- 
fused, as he must do, to deal with the question of Papal 
Aggression. 

The Queen a second time sent for Lord Stanley, who 
made an attempt for the co-operation of the men upon 
whom he must depend for his working majority. And he 
failed. 

Her Majesty then, being able to find no one else who 
would undertake to form a ministry, wrote to Lord John 
Russell, who had just gone out of office, as follows :* 

" All possible combinations have failed in their turn. First, you 
declared your inability to carry on the Government on account of the 
hostility displayed toward it in Parliament. Secondly, Lord Stanley 
declined forming a government of his party until every other possi- 

* Martin's "Life of Prince Consort," vol. ii..o. 347. 
3 



50 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

bility had been exhausted. Thirdly, you have failed to reconstruct 
the Government by a combination with Sir Robert Peel's friends. 
Fourthly, Lord Aberdeen did not think it possible for him to form a 
government with his friends alone. Fifthly, Lord Stanley has failed 
in the attempt to construct a government by a junction with some of 
Sir R. Peel's friends, or of his party alone." 

A memorandum from Prince Albert, written at the time 
to the Duke of Wellington, throws further light on the 
situation. He wrote : 

" The important questions agitating the public mind are — 
" a. Protection or Free-trade. 
" b. Parliamentary Reform. 

" c. Papal Aggression. 

****** * 

" It would appear from this that the Peelites, with the support of 
the Whigs and adhesion of the Radicals, Irish and Roman Catholics, 
would be able to carry on an efficient government ; but Sir James 
Graham and Lord Aberdeen distinctly declared that the country ex- 
pected a measure to be carried against the papal aggressions, to 
which the Peelites neither will nor can be a party ; while the House 
of Commons is actually pledged to some measure by deciding for 
the introduction of Lord John Russell's bill by three hundred and 
ninety-five to sixty-three votes. Lord John will accordingly have to 
pass some such measure, but this very measure will detach perma- 
nently from him a great portion of his ordinary supporters. 

" From this it would appear that Lord John and the Whigs must 
bring in, on the part of the Government, an antipapal measure, but 
that they require a junction with the Peelites for the carrying on of 
an efficient government, preventing a revolution in Ireland, and keep- 
ing the confidence of the Radicals, which is necessary for a peaceful 
carrying out of parliamentary and financial reforms. 

"So matters stand in theory. In practice innumerable personal 
difficulties will have to be overcome ; as, for instance, who is to form 
that government ?" 

And the memorandum of the Prince ends: 

"The Queen requests the Duke of Wellington's opinion upon the 
problem here proposed." 



CONSTITUTIONAL ROYALTY. 51 

And indeed it must be admitted it was a " problem " 
which stood in need of a solution. That was indeed a 
question, of more or less importance, who was to "form a 
government," Lord John Russell wrote at the time to the 
Prince Consort :* 

M I am very glad to hear that the Queen has sent for the Duke of 
Wellington, and not sorry that he is at Strathfieldsaye. It will be an 
excellent reason for the Queen's not sending for any one to-day. I 
own that, without some such reason, I ivas afraid that the prerogative 
of the Crown might pass to the IIou.se of Commons." 

Meantime England was on the brink of a great war, and 
was without an executive. 

Take a later case. 

In February, 1852, the one thing of all most pressing, 
for the English Government, was to arm the nation for de- 
fence. Lord John Russell's ministry was left in a minor- 
ity in the House of Commons, resigned, and Lord Derby 
had the task of forming a new government. He offered 
Lord Palmerston the Chancellorship of the Exchequer ; 
and Lord Palmerston declined to serve under Lord Derby, 
" on the ground that he could under no circumstances as- 
sent to the expediency of imposing a duty on foreign corny 
And Lord Palmerston was the one man in any of the 
ministries of the time who showed any real administrative 
talent. 

Take the next case. 

When Lord Aberdeen's government took office in 1852, 
Mr. Martin says :f 

ik Her Majesty had no hesitation in charging Lord Aberdeen with 
the formation of a new government. This was on the 19th, and it 
was not until the 28th that the new ministry were able to kiss hands 

* Martin's " Life of Prince Consort," vol. ii. p. 349. 
f Ibid., vol. ii. p. 4 



52 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

upon their appointment, so many were the difficulties to be overcome, 
when there were fewer offices to fill than able men with just preten- 
sions to fill them." 

This was the 19th of December, 1852. The needs of the 
country at the time can be gathered from a letter written 
on the 31st of January, 1853, by Lord Palmerston to his 
brother :* 

" We are labor-big to place the country in a state of defence, and our , 
only limit is the purse of the Chancellor of the Exchequer ; but what- 
ever may be at the bottom of the secret thoughts of the French Em- 
peror, into whose bosom no man can dive, yet I see no reason to ap- 
prehend an immediate or even an early rupture with France ; and if 
we have two years more of preparation allowed us, we shall be in a 
good defensive position. In the mean time we do not allow that we 
are even now defenseless." 

To an enemy of England, how charming must have been 
the spectacle of a country with its war minister engaged 
in the manipulation of parliamentary majorities, and turn- 
ing over the affairs of his office, whenever he chanced to 
vote wrongly on a question of papal aggression, to a new 
man (if one could be found) who knew less than himself ! 
All this was when the English people expected a war with 
France, and within about a year of the war with Eussia. 
Is it hard to understand how that war found the English 
army a mass of magnificent raw material, without any effi- 
cient working organization. 

Events went on. On the eve of the Crimean war, after 
the British fleet had moved up to Constantinople, Lord 
Palmerston offered his resignation from the ministry. He 
was not, indeed, at the head of the Foreign Office or the 
War Office. But it was thought by nearly all men that 
his mere presence in the ministry, in any position, was of 

* Ashley's " Life of Lord Palmerston," vol. ii. p. 6. 



CONSTITUTIONAL ROYALTY. 

the utmost importance to the country. His reason for re- 
signing, given by himself in a letter to his brother-in-law,* 

is as follows : 

11 1 told Aberdeen and Lansdowne last year, when r joined the Gov- 
ernment, that I felt great doubts as to my being able to concur in the 
plan of parliamentary reform which John Russell might propose this 
year. * * * I had then nothing left for it but to resign. * * * I 
could not take up a bill which contained material things of which I 
disapproved, and assist to fight it through the House of Commons" 

In the first failures of the Crimean war, Mr. Roebuck 
made his motion for the appointment of a committee to 
inquire into the condition of the army before Sebastopol, 
and the conduct of certain departments of the Government. 
Lord John Russell immediately resigned. The position in 
which the ministry was then placed is thus given by Lord 
Palm erst on in a letter to Lord John Russell :f 

"As regards the country, the action of the executive will be para- 
for a time, in a critical moment of a great tear, with an impend- 
ing negotiation, and we shall exhibit to the world a melancholy spec- 
tacle of disorganization among our political men at home similar to 
that which has prevailed among our military men abroad." 

Mr. Martin saysj of the same matter : 

" The Queen protested against this decision [to resign], as exposing 
f. and the country to extreme peril, it being manifestly impossible 
to change the Government at such a moment without deranging the 
whole external policy of diplomacy and ivar. A break-up of the Gov- 
ernment at this time would also exhibit to the world the humiliating 
spectacle of a disorganization among our statesmen at home, akin to 
that which had become too palpable among our military men at the 
seat of war, and had already tended greatly to lower our prestige in 
the eyes of Europe." 

* Ashley's " Life of Lord Palmerston," vol. ii. p. 19. 

f Ibid., vol. ii. p. 71. 

% Martin's " Life of Prince Consort," vol. ill - p. 200. 



54 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

Another repetition was then had of the attempts to cre- 
ate an executive. The Queen wrote to Lord John Russell, 
who was chronically in office one day and the next day 
out :* 

" The Queen has just seen Lord Lansdowne after his return from 
his conference with Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston. As 
moments are precious, and the time is rolling on without the various 
consultations which Lord Lansdowne has had the kindness and pa- 
tience to hold with the various persons composing the Queen's late 
government having led to any positive result, she feels that she ought 
to intrust some one of them with the distinct commission to attempt 
the formation of a government." 

And, indeed, most men would admit that it was a wise 
thing for "some one" to " attempt M the formation of a 
government. And the note continues : 

" The Queen addresses herself in this instance to Lord John Rus- 
sell, as the person who may be considered to have contributed to the 
vote of the House of Commons which displaced her last government, 
and hopes that he will be able to present to her such a government 
as will give a fair promise to overcome the great difficulties in which 
the country is placed." 

And when Pitt made his coalition with the Duke of 
Newcastle, the country had been without an administration 
for eleven weeks, in the middle of a war. 

Is not this somewhat alarming 1 I concede, and urge, 
that a properly constituted legislature should have the 
power of removing the head of the War Office. But for 
what ? For voting wrongly on Eoman Catholic emancipa- 
tion, or for mismanagement of army affairs ? If only one 
minister were removed for his own failure to do well the 
work of his own office, there would be reason in that. But 
in England the whole ministry go out. When and how a 

* Martin's "Life of Prince Consort," vol. hi. p. 206. 



CONSTITUTIONAL ROYALTY. 

Dew one can be had, no man can tell. The " system " ifl a 
- of revolutions. Every change of ministry is a revolu- 
tion — a peaceful revolution, it is true, a revolution under 
the law ; but still a revolution, full of danger in times of 
danger. 

In times past the English people used, as part of the or- 
dinary machinery of their government, the method of arm- 
ed revolution, in violation of law, against the tyranny of a 
king. At the present time they use the method of peace- 
ful revolution, under the law, when they wish to change a 
ministry. It is not a wise or safe method. 

Thus far it has been assumed, as men generally do as- 
sume in discussing what is called Constitutional Royalty, 
that the king is king only in name — that the sovereign 

1. Uses the will and judgment of the Commons in his 
appointment of ministers. 

2. Uses the will and judgment of the ministers in all 
executive action. 

3. Uses his own will and judgment in nothing. 

I say this is generally assumed in discussions on these 
matters. 

It may be that few men, or no men, would lay down 
these three propositions broadly as they are laid down here. 

But the manner of making the assumption is commonly 
this : In discussing these matters, Englishmen, and many 
Americans, say that the king can do no harm in the State. 
They say, he has, indeed, in law, the appointment of his 
ministers ; but, in fact, he must appoint ministers who are 
satisfactory to the Commons. They say, he is, in law, the 
chief executive ; but, in fact, he must follow the advice of 
his ministers. 

Now, if the king has any real power in the State, he can 
use it for both good and evil. If he can do good by the 



56 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

wise use of his power, he can do harm by the unwise use 
of it. 

It is no doubt true, as Englishmen always claim, that a 
wise and upright king in the English State, as it is now 
ordered, can do an endless amount of good. It is as true 
that a king in England who is not both w r ise and upright 
can do an endless amount of harm. If he is a man of the 
purest intentions in the world, unless he be also wise and 
able, he is most dangerous. He may mean to use his powd- 
er wisely ; other men will try to use him and his power 
unwisely. To make the use of it safe, the wisdom must 
be where the power is — with him. 

This point deserves careful examination. 

Undoubtedly there is no danger in this nineteenth cen- 
tury that any English king will be a Charles, or any Eng- 
lish queen will be an Elizabeth. No doubt royal power in 
England at this day is as thoroughly under the control of 
public opinion as the power of ministers — or of the House 
of Commons. Public opinion controls everything, as soon 
as it once gets an existence and a voice. Nor will there 
be, for many years to come, if ever there is, in England, an 
armed revolution against royal or other tyranny. When 
the people once gets the free use of its voice, it no longer 
needs to use its hands. This is becoming an ao-e w T here 
brains and thought are stronger than mere muscle. 

But in England, down to this present reign, with hardly 
an exception, there has been no English king or queen who 
has not used the power that the law gave them, on their 
own judgment, on their own will, for their own purposes. 
Each one of them has always made the hardest struggle they 
could, with such weapons as they dared to use, against the 
will and well-being of the Commons and the English people. 

But how has it been in the present reign ? 



CONSTITUTIONAL ROYALTY. 57 

So late as the year I B52, her Majesty, the present que!), 
dismissed Lord Palmerston from the ministry, for do rear 

son whatever except that he did not conduct the busi 
of the Foreign Office in a manner that conformed to her 
ideas of the personal dignity of the sovereign. There was 
no question made as to his administrative ability, or as to 
his being in complete accord with Parliament on all points 
of home and foreign policy. lie might have been, and in 
the minds of the majority of Englishmen he was, the one 
man in England to till his place. But lie was dismissed, on 
the mere will of the sovereign, for these purely personal 
reasons. Lord John Russell, on the occasion of this dis- 
missal, read in the House of Commons a royal memoran- 
dum on the duties and failings of Lord Palmerston. It 
was the language of the monarch, approved by the minis- 
ter, and it was as follows : 

M The Queen requires, first, that Lord Palmerston will distinctly 
state what he proposes in a given case, in order that the Queen may 
know as distinctly to what she has given her royal sanction. Sec- 
ondly, having once given her sanction to such a measure, that it be 
not arbitrarily altered or modified by the minister. Such an act she 
must consider as failure in sincerity toward the Crown, and justly to 
be visited by the exercise of her constitutional right of dismissing that 
mimgter. She expects to be informed of what passes between him 
and foreign ministers before important decisions are taken based 
upon that intercourse ; to receive the foreign despatches in good 
time, and to have the drafts for her approved sent to her in sufficient 
time to make herself acquainted with the contents before they must 
be sent off." 

Lord Palmerston was dismissed because he transacted 
the public business on his own motion, on his own re- 
sponsibility, without consulting the Queen. Yet English 
writers say that it is the minister who is " responsible " for 
the executive action; that he, and not the monarch, must 



58 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

meet an impeachment for the action of the Crown. If the 
law has any consistency, it is the minister who should have 
the deciding will. This royal memorandum, so late as the 
year 1852, says that the minister has not that deciding 
will, that he shall not act without the sovereign's approval, 
and that if he does so act, the sovereign will dismiss him, 
no matter whether he belong to the majority in Parlia- 
ment or not. 

This doctrine was not simply asserted by the Queen. 
Lord John Russell said, at the time of reading the memo- 
randum :* 

" I thus become responsible for the sanction of the doctrine I am 
about to read. * * * 

" I think that when, on the one hand, the Crown, in consequence of 
a vote of the House of Commons, places its constitutional confidence 
in a minister, that minister is bound, on the other hand, to the Crown, 
to the most frank and full detail of every measure that is to be taken, 
and is bound either to obey the sanction of the Crown, or to leave to 
the Crown that full liberty which the Crown must possess of no longer 
continuing that minister in office.'''' 

And he spoke of the Queen's " constitutional right of dis- 
missing that minister." 

Lord Palmerston on the same occasion said : 
"No important political instruction is ever sent to any British 
minister abroad, and no note addressed to any foreign diplomatic 
agent, without the draft being first submitted to the head of the Gov- 
ernment, in order that the pleasure of the Crown might be taken upon 
it ; and if either the higher authority or the Prime Minister suggested 
alterations, those alterations were made, or the despatch was withheld." 

This means something. There is the fact of a dismissal 
of a minister, not on any vote of the Commons — not on the 
will of the Commons — of the ablest administrator England 
then had in her service, on nothing but the royal will. 

* Hansard, Third Series, vol. cxix. p. 90. 



CONSTITUTIONAL ROYALTY. 

admirers of English constitutional royalty have 
mistaking a person for an institution. They have 
mistaking the reign of one pure and upright qtfeen 
for the monarchy. The expectation is that always the 
will have no will of his own, hut will merely 
iter the will of Parliament. That has, in the main, 
been so, in this present reign — when the sovereign is a 
woman, who is, of course, compelled to lean on the advice 
of some one, and who, under such exceptional circum- 
stances as have never before existed in the history of Eng- 
lish royalty, has followed good advice from good advisers. 
But has it never happened that an English king has had 
bad advisers, or that he has not taken advice \ 

Mr. Bagehot says : 

k ' If we look at history, we shall find that it is only during the 
period of the present reign that in England the duties of a constitu- 
tional sovereign have ever been well performed. The first two 
Georges were ignorant of English affairs, and wholly unable to guide 
them, whether well or ill. For many years in their time the Prime 
Minister had, over and above the labor of managing Parliament, to 
manage the woman — sometimes the queen, sometimes the mistress — 
who managed the sovereign. George III. interfered unceasingly, but 
he did harm unceasingly ; George IV. and William IV. gave no 
steady continuing guidance, and were unfit to give it. On the Conti- 
nent, in first-class countries, constitutional royalty has never lasted 
out of one generation. Louis Phillippe, Victor Emanuel, and Leo- 
pold are the founders of their dynasties. We must not reckon in 
constitutional monarchy any more than in despotic monarchy on the 
permanence in descendants of the peculiar genius which founded the 
race. As far as experience goes, there is no reason to expect a 
hereditary series of useful limited monarchs." 

Why is it that "it is only during the period of the 
present reign that in England the duties of a constitu- 
tional sovereign have ever been well performed .'" Be- 
cause this is the very first reicrn in the historv of the Eno;- 



60 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

lish monarchy when the will of the sovereign lias sub- 
mitted to the will of the Commons. 

But concede that an English king will never again try 
to use, for his own selfish purposes, the power that, under 
the law, he has. Concede that English monarchs have at 
last entered on a career of self-abnegation that will never 
end. Assume that English ministers will do all executive 
acts — in other words, that the hereditary king is king only 
in name, and that the real king is the minister. 

How many Englishmen, even advanced Liberals, will ad- 
mit or claim that this power of appointing the ministers, 
which, under the law, belongs to the king, is a power which 
he is to use at all times in complete subservience to the 
will and judgment of any other man or body of men, even 
of a majority in Parliament, and not in the least according 
to his own judgment ? Suppose England to be engaged 
in a great war for her life, and that a Bismarck had been 
found in the English nation who was the one man, of all 
men, to be at the head of the War OfBce. Suppose, too, 
that this war had already been going on for several years, 
that this one man had been during those years at the head 
of the War Office, and had there shown his singular genius 
and fitness for that one place. Suppose, then, that on an 
important question of legislative policy the ministry found 
themselves in a hopeless minority, and resigned. Here is 
the one man who can save the English nation. Whom shall 
the king, in such a case, place and keep at the head of the 
War Office? Shall he take the man who will ruin the na- 
tion, and throw away the man who will save the nation, 
simply for the reason that the one is and the other is not 
one of a combination of men w 7 ho have a majority in the 
House of Commons? I doubt if many Englishmen would 
go as far as this. 



CONSTITUTIONAL ROYALTY. 61 

But it may be said this is an extreme case ; and we must 
nol judge of a system by extreme cases. On the contrary, 
bem is to be judged precisely by its capacity for meet- 
ing extreme cases. Almost any system will do as a fair- 
weather system. The whole matter comes down to this — 
is the King of England, in the selection of cabinet minis- 
it any time, under any conceiyable circumstances, to 
use his own will i If he is, upon what principle is he to 
be allowed to do so i Upon no conceiyable principle, for 
no possible reason, except that the public good demands 
it. And how is he to ascertain whether the public good 
does demand it ? Men, the wisest and best, may differ on 
the point. Who is to decide? In the nature of things 
only one man can decide — the man who has in law the 
power. And how is he to decide? He must decide on 
his own judgment, for lie can decide on no other. He 
might as well try to walk on other men's legs. 

There neyer has yet been a government on the face of 
tbe earth where men have not used the power that the 
law gave them. There never will be one. In years past 
the English kings have always used their power at their 
own will. In years to come English kings will still use 
their power at their own will. They may use it with the 
most upright purposes, for what they think the people's 
good. But if the English people wish to keep the possi- 
bility of this royal power being well used, they must take 
the possibility of its being ill used. They will sooner or 
later find that, for their own safety, it must be in wise 
hands. 

The English people — there is no doubt of it — need to 
have some one man use, in fact, precisely the power that 
the king has, in law. They need to have one man at the 
head of the whole executiye administration who shall con- 



62 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

trol the whole executive administration, who shall have 
nothing to do with legislation, who shall give vigor and 
stability to the whole government policy. 

But the man who is to do work like that must be a man 
with strength of his own, something more than another 
man's son. He must be a man who has proved himself, 
who is able to do great deeds, who is chosen for what he 
himself has done and can do, and not on the hope that he 
will let other men do something for him. He must have 
a will and judgment of his own. The people must be able 
to put their trust in what he will do on his own judgment, 
and not be driven to pray that he will take good advice 
from good advisers. 

And the man who is to have power like that must, of 
course, be himself held " responsible " for the use of it. It 
will not do to hold some other men " responsible " for his 
misdeeds. Who was the wonderful being that hit on this 
weird fancy of vicarious atonement in affairs of state ? 

The experience of the English people had shown them 
that when they did chance to have a king who was able 
and upright, they had v/ise and strong executive adminis- 
tration. But they found that this chief executive power 
must be put in the hands of a man who was — 

1. Chosen, in some way, for fitness of some kind. 

2. Eemoved, in some way, for unfitness of some kind. 
This had been the lesson of all English history. 

They should have made their machinery such as to 
choose and remove their king, and not his ministers, for 
some fitness or unfitness of his own. The fitness or unfit- 
ness for which ministers are removed should be fitness or 
unfitness, not for catching votes, but for executive admin- 
istration. If the House of Commons can be trusted to 
appoint and remove a dozen ministers, they can be trusted 



CONSTITUTIONAL ROYALTY. 63 

to appoint and remove one kino*. If the House of Com- 
mons can be trusted to remove a war minister because he 
has wrong ideas on the Irish Church, they can be trusted 

to remove him because he knows nothing about army af- 
fairs. The difficulty in the English Government is, that 
they remove the wrong man for the wrong thing. The 
English people must use with the king himself the same 
rule that they use with his servants. He must be chosen 
for fitness. He must be held responsible. And then give 
him the use, in fact, of the power he has, in law. 

And at last, what is this "system" of "English Consti- 
tutional Royalty " as it stands at this day ? 

It begins with giving the chief executive power in the 
State to a man, not because he is himself fit, but because 
he is another man's son. It gives him that power, not to 
use himself, but for other men to use for him. It does 
not hold him responsible for the use of the power that 
he has, but holds his ministers responsible for the use of 
power they have not. His ministers, who are to use the 
power that the law gives to him, he is to appoint, not on 
his own judgment, but at the will of the House of Com- 
mons. These ministers, who are the heads of the execu- 
tive offices, are appointed because they are fit, not for the 
work of their offices, but for something else. After they 
are appointed, they give their best efforts, not to the work 
of their offices, but to something else. The minister does 
not know how to do the work of his office, but must use 
the judgment of other men. He is removed from his of- 
fice, not because he has done its work ill, but because the 
ministry as a body have blundered in Parliament. Be- 
cause they have blundered in Parliament, the ministry are 
removed from their executive offices ; and they keep their 
places in Parliament, where they have made their blunders. 



64 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

The king, who is, in law, the chief executive, does nothing. 
The ministry, which is, in fact, the chief executive, does 
work in the Legislature. The House of Commons, which 
should do nothing but give supervision to the whole ad- 
ministration, is ever meddling with details. The king, 
who should use his executive power, has his hands tied by 
the ministers. The ministers have their hands tied by 
the House of Commons. The House of Commons has its 
hands tied by the fear of the next general election. 

Men say this is a wonderful system of " checks." It is 
precisely a system of " checks," and nothing else. We 
might as well try to run a railway train by the brakes, as 
manage the army, and navy, and great public works of a 
nation by any such machinery as that. Such a wonder- 
ful thing in the shape of a government was never before 
seen on the face of the earth, or any other heavenly body. 
The brain of no human being could ever have devised so 
ingenious a scheme for having every man's work done by 
some one else, and everything done ill. 

" Why is it," Mr. Bagehot asks,* with charming naivete, 
" that our English Government, which is beyond compari- 
son the best of parliamentary governments, is not cele- 
brated through the world for administrative efficiency ? 
It is noted for many things ; why is it not noted for that ? 
Why, according to popular belief, is it characterized by 
the very contrary V . Why ? For the very simple reason 
that the " popular belief " is true. 

It was left for the English people to give to the world 
its most unique exhibition of the glories of " Constitu- 
tional Royalty " when Sir Robert Peel, in 1839, declined to 
take office because her Majesty the Queen refused to re- 

* " The English Constitution," p. 273. 



CONSTITUTIONAL ROYALTY. *fl 

move the ladies of the royal bedchamber: What a Bight 
for England's enemies! That the point of who should be 
the war minister of a great nation should depend on the 
question which of two noble ladies should flutter with the 
sublime ecstasy of drawing* on and off the royal hose ! 
And men write gravely of such an affair. 

We hear much said of the " English system" of admin- 
istration. Does any living Englishman know wdiat it is? 
Sir James Fitzjames Stephen tried to find out, and failed. 
lie gives us the result of his search, as follows :* 

"I will content myself with a single additional remark on the 
chaotic condition to which our Parliamentary system has reduced 
the executive government. No one living man knows what the sys- 
tem is, or where to get an account of it. Many years ago — more than 
twenty — I studied the subject with some care, with a view to writing 
a book about it. Engagements of other kinds caused me to lay the 
scheme aside ; but my inquiries satisfied me that there was no toler- 
able account of the subject to be found anywhere, and that the only 
way of forming one would be by giving thorough studies and mak- 
ing personal inquiries which hardly any one is in a position to un- 
dertake." 

But how did such a machinery ever come into exist- 
ence ? 

The English people had their hereditary king. He was 
not chosen for any fitness of his. He had vast power un- 
der the law. And no matter what abuse of that power lie 
might make, there was, under the law, no means of remov- 
ing him. They found that here was an evil they could 
not longer endure. They sought a remedy. 

They might have said, We will have no king. Or they 
might have provided some means of choosing a fit man 
to be king. Or they might have taken from the king his 

* Contemporary Review, Dec, 1873, p. 16. 



66 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

power. Or they might have provided some means, under 
the law, of removing him for an abuse of that power. If 
they had done either of these things, they would have 
aimed straight at the evil from which they had suffered. 

They did neither. 

They kept their king, and surrounded him with " ad- 
visers." Even then, if they had punished or removed the 
king for not taking the advice of his " advisers," there 
would have been reason in that. They did nothing of the 
kind. They punish or remove the " adviser," because the 
king will not take the advice. 

These " advisers," the ministers whom the king, in law, 
appointed and removed, he appointed and removed at the 
will of Parliament. Naturally it came to be the rule that 
the ministers w^ere taken from Parliament. The whole 
machinery came to be a roundabout method of an election 
by Parliament of ministers from its own members. There 
was the origin of this confusion of legislative and admin- 
istrative functions, of this custom of appointing and re- 
moving a war minister for things that have no connection 
whatever with the work he is to do. 

Very clearly, too, if the people kept their hereditary 
king, who was king in form, they could not have an elec- 
tive king, who should be king in fact. That is the reason 
why they must have a ministry, which is nothing but a 
collection of heads of departments, with no one man who 
is at the head of the executive administration, and who 
is responsible for it all. For that man would be the real 
King of England. 

The English revolution against hereditary monarchy is 
not yet finished. It may never be finished. But until it 
is finished, and until royal power is placed in fit and re- 
sponsible hands, the English people will have, not a gov- 



CONSTITUTIONAL ROYALTY. 

eminent, but a medley. This attempt to use the machin- 
ery of hereditary feudalism for doing the work of a free 
pie is a method behind the age.* 
And from the workings of English Constitutional Roy- 
alty, we can, unless these views are greatly mistaken, gather 
these points : 

1. There should be one man at the head of all execu- 
tive administration, with power, responsible for the whole 
of that executive administration. 

2. An executive officer should be chosen for his fitness 
for the work of his office, and not for work in the Lens- 
lature. 

3. He should give his time and thought to the work of 
his office, and not to work in the Legislature. 

4. lie should be held "responsible " for the work of his 
office, and not for work in the Legislature. 

5. It is not enough to hold only ministers " responsi- 
ble M for the use of power which is vested in a chief exec- 
utive. The chief executive himself must be held respon- 
sible for the use of his own power. 

And these points, on being simply stated, would seem 
to approve themselves to the common sense of men. 

* See Appendix A. 



68 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 



CHAPTER IV. 

FALSE REPUBLICANISM THE TYRANNY OF PARTY. 

In the minds of the men of 1787 who framed the Con- 
stitution of the United States, one idea stood out more 
strongly than any other. They had seen, as they thought, 
the evils of a tyranny of king and lords. They said, 
therefore, we will have no king and no lords. There 
shall be nothing hereditary in our system of government. 
They said, we will have — 

1. No man inheriting power for his birtho 

2. No man holding power which cannot be taken from 
him. 

But they said — 

1. Power shall be given to men for their fitness. 

2. Power shall be taken from men for their unfitness. 
The end of this Government was to be the good of the 

people. 

The intention was that this Government should be, as 
the phrase is, a government by the people, that — 

1. The people should choose their own rulers. 

2. The people's offices should be used only in the peo- 
ple's service. 

The result has been a government by party. 

1. Party has chosen the people's rulers. 

2. The people's offices have been used in the service of 
party. 

As it seems to me, few men are in the habit of thinking 



FALSE REPUBLICANISM. 

how far these two statements arc true, how thoroughly the 
interests of the people have been sacrificed by our public 

servants to the needs of party. It is a point worthy our 
careful consideration. 

Let us take the two points in their reverse order. Let 
us first see how far the people's offices have been used in 
the service of party. 

Tarty did not at once get its full growth. Nor did the 
system of party rule at once bring its full fruits. Able 
men wished to serve the people under the Government ; 
and the people wished and had their services. It took 
many years for party politics to drive our best men from 
public life, where they wished to be, and where the people 
wished they should be. 

But the system began its work early. The abuses be- 
gan as soon as parties got their existence. In the earliest 
days of party history, party men acted on true party prin- 
ciples. They used the people's offices to pay for party 
services. They used official power for party ends. 

Thomas Jefferson was the first leader of the first oppo- 
sition party. Let us see what party action was in his day, 
as he describes it. 

Mr. Jefferson writes, just before his own election as 
President,* under date 12th February, 1801 : 

M Edmund Livingston tells mc that Bayard applied to-day or last 
night to General Smith, and represented to him the expediency of 
his coming over to the States who vote for Burr; that there was 
nothing in the way of appointment which he might not command, 
and particularly mentioned the Secretaryship of the Navy. Smith 
I him if he was authorized to make the offer. He said he was 
authorized. Smith told this to Livingston, and to W. C. Nicholas, 
who confirms it to me. Bayard, in like manner, tempted Livingston, 

* Jefferson's u Writings," ed. Boston, 1830, vol. iv. p. 515. 



70 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

not by offering any particular office, but by representing to him his 
(Livingston's) intimacy and connection with Burr, and that from him 
he had everything to expect, if he would come over to him. To 
Dr. Linn, of New Jersey, they have offered the government of New 
Jersey." 

And as to this bargain and sale of the people's offices, 
from Mr. Jefferson there came not so much as one word of 
surprise. 

Very naturally, Thomas Jefferson, the apostle of liberty, 
the foe of monarchy and corruption, the first leader of the 
first opposition party in our history, may claim and keep 
the glory of being the first President of the United States 
who confessedly used the power of his office for mere 
party purposes. He gives us the statement of his own 
deeds and principles in a letter dated the 23d March, 
1801 — immediately after his inauguration to the office of 
President of the United States.* 

" That some ought to be removed from office and that all ought 
not, all mankind will agree. * * * Some principles have been the 
subject of conversation, but not of determination: e.g. — 1. All ap- 
pointments to civil offices during pleasure, made after the event of 
the election was certainly known to Mr. Adams, are considered as 
nullities. I do not view the persons appointed as even candidates 
for the office, but make others without noticing or even notifying 
them. * * * 3. Good men, to whom there is no objection but a differ- 
ence of political principle, practised on only as far as the right of a 
private citizen will justify, are not proper subjects of removal, except 
in the case of attorneys and marshals. The courts being so decided- 
ly federal and irremovable, it is believed that republican attorneys 
and marshals, being the doors of entrance into the courts, are indis- 
pensably necessary as a shield to the republican part of our fellow- 
citizens, which, I believe, is the main body of the people." 

These words were written when John Marshall was 
* Jefferson's-" Writings," vol. iii. p. 464. 



FALSE REPUBLICANISM 71 

Chief-Justice of the United States. Did Mr. Jefferson 
really believe that John Marshall dealt out decrees accord- 
in-- to the political opinions of the suitors before the 
courts? Did Mr. Jefferson mean that the " attorneys and 
marshals " whom he appointed were to know parties in 
the administration of justice, or that they were in any case 
to interfere with the due and decorous administration of 
the law I 

These questions can best be answered by considering 
what Mr. Jefferson has written in reference to the some- 
what noted case of Callender. 

Callender had been indicted, tried, and convicted under 
the Sedition Act. He had been sentenced to pay a fine 
for his breaking the law. There was no doubt of the 
man's guilt, nor had there been any error in his trial. He 
was pardoned by the President, w T ho ordered his fine to be 
repaid him by the Government. Of this executive action 
Mr. Jefferson wrote :* 

" In the cases of Callender and others the judges determined the 
Sedition Act was valid under the Constitution, and exercised their regu- 
lar power of sentencing them to fine and imprisonment. But the 
executive determined that the Sedition Act was a nullity under the 
Constitution, and exercised his regular power of prohibiting the exe- 
cution of the sentence, or rather of executing the real law." 

It could not admit of a doubt that Congress had the 
power to enact laws to punish rebellion, or that such laws 
should be enforced. It was clear, too, that a sure w r ay to 
bring the government to ruin was to hinder those law r s 
from being executed. It will be seen that Mr. Jefferson 
had some difficulty in finding a fitting phrase to describe 

* Jefferson's " Writings," vol. iv. p. 75. 



n A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

this executive action. To " execute the real law " by par- 
doning a criminal convicted for breaking it is something 
new in legal definitions and in legal ethics. The execu- 
tive whose action is thus happily described was Thomas 
Jefferson, the first President who deliberately encouraged 
violation of the laws, and who had, it is presumed, with 
due solemnity, taken his oath to " defend the Constitution 
of the United States." 

Let us consider another instance : 

The right of an accused person in a criminal prosecu- 
tion to have " the assistance of counsel for his defence " 
has always, in this country, been allowed to be essentially 
necessary for securing the liberty of the citizen. And so 
important was it deemed by the founders of our Govern- 
ment, that even in the Constitution of the United States 
it is secured by a special clause, though it w r as not, in or- 
dinary times, or at the hands of ordinary men, thought to 
be in danger. On the trial of Burr for high treason, Mr. 
Luther Martin, one of the lights of the American bar, was 
one of the counsel for the prisoner. And during that 
trial Mr. Jefferson, then President of the United States, 
w T rote to his friend Mr. Hay, w t 1io was concerned in the 
prosecution :* 

" Shall we move to commit Luther Martin as particeps criminis with 
Burr ? Graybell will fix upon him misprision of treason at least ; 
and, at any rate, his evidence will put down this unprincipled and im- 
pudent federal bull-dog, and add another proof that the most clam- 
orous defenders of Burr are all his accomplices." 

In later years we have seen the President of the United 
States ostentatiously w r elcome a prisoner in the dock at a 

* Jefferson^ " Writings," vol. iv. p. 87. 



FALSE REPUBLICANISM 

state dinner in the executive mansion. It has, however, 
Beldom been the case thai the Chief Magistrate of this 
country has used the influence and power of his high po- 
sition to hinder the conviction and punishment of crimi- 
nals, or to interfere with the administration of justice. 
For executive action of this class Mr. Jefferson g 
the earliest precedent. And it needs high authority. 

Now Mi >n was a conscientious man. Nor was 

he a man who seriously intended to violate his oath of of- 
Btit he was the first high official in the Government 
who set the example to the people of the United States 
of deliberately defying the law. From his teachings of 
resistance to what he called illegal laws came the whole 
theory of nullification, and the whole fact of the rebellion. 
Would he have ever done the things here mentioned ex- 
cept for the pressure of party and party needs ? 

The practice instituted by Mr. Jefferson, of making ap- 
pointments to and removals from office for mere party 
reasons, grew until Mr. Van Buren established it in all its 
fulness. From his time it was the regular system, acted 
on by both parties, that public offices were the spoils be- 
longing to the victors in the party contests. And from 
that time down to the present the ordinary practice has 
been, on the coming in of a new party, to remove every 
official belonging to the old party, and use his place as a 
reward for party service, except that some experienced 
men who were needed to carry on the ordinary depart- 
ment business have generally been continued from one 
administration to another. 

The abuses of party action did not become so gross or 
so apparent until later in our history ; and it is especially 
the period of the rebellion and its beginning that here 
concerns this argument. 

4 



H A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

Mr. Lincoln was in many ways a very great man — a 
man of remarkable eloquence, and of a peculiar wisdom 
that seemed at times to be a kind of inspiration. Most 
men will concede that he was a man of thoroughly pure 
intentions, having in all his acts only a wish to serve the 
people's highest interests. In him the people had un- 
bounded faith. They were more ready to follow him than 
he was to lead them. His power over them he never 
knew. If, then, we find that such a man, in his attempts 
to serve the nation, was overborne by party and party in- 
fluences, party in this country must have a power too great 
for the people's good. 

As soon as Mr. Lincoln was elected President, it was 
seen that a war for national existence was to be carried on. 
It was clear that the war would be a great war. Great 
amounts of money and material were to be handled. The 
success of our armies and fleets depended on the way in 
which this money and material should be used. It was, 
to the people of the United States, matter of life and death 
that there should be placed at the head of the War and 
Navy departments men who were able and honest, as Mr. 
Lincoln well understood. 

At the time of Mr. Lincoln's nomination for the Presi- 
dency at the Chicago Convention, according to one of his 
biographers, an agreement had been made between the 
friends of Mr. Lincoln and the friends of one Simon Cam- 
eron, of Pennsylvania, that if the Pennsylvania delegates 
to the Convention would vote for Mr. Lincoln, a seat in Mr. 
Lincoln's cabinet, if he should be elected, would be given 
to Mr. Cameron. This agreement had been made without 
Mr. Lincoln's knowledge. But after Mr. Lincoln was elect- 
ed, he was asked to carry out the bargain which his friends 
on his behalf had made. As to what followed, the narra^ 



i;i:im BLIOANISM. 

five will be taken from Mr. Lincoln's biographer. The 
rapher be] 
moron had many and formidable enemies, who alleged tli.it he 
man notorious for his evil deeds, shameless to his rapacity and 
corruption, and oven more shameless in his mean ambition to occu- 
py exalted stations, for which he was utterly and hopelessly incompe- 
tent ; that he hail never dared to offer himself as a candidate before 
the people of Pennsylvania, but had more than once gotten high office 
from the Legislature by the worst means ever used by a politician; 
and that it would be a disgrace, a shame, a Btanding offence to the 
country, if Mr. Lincoln should consent to put him in his cabinet." 

A- to Mr. Lincoln's action, the biographer continues the 
story from the statement of one of the actors — Colonel 
M'Clure: 

" I do not know that any one went there to oppose the appoint- 
ment but myself. * * * Lincoln's character for honesty teas considered 
a complete guaranty against such a suicidal act. Xo efforts had there- 
fore been made to guard against it. * * * I hastily got letters from 
Governor Curtin, Secretary Slifen, Mr. Wilrnot, Mr. Dayton, Mr. Ste- 
vens, and started. I took no affidavits with me, nor were any specific 
charges made against him by me, or by any of the letters I bore ; but 
they all sustained me in the allegation that the appointment would 
administration and the country, because of the notorious 
incompetency and public and private viilany of the candidate. I spent 
four hours with Mr. Lincoln alone ; and the matter was discussed 
fully and frankly. Although he had previously decided to appoint 
Cameron, he closed our interview by a reconsideration of his purpose, 
and the assurance that within twenty-four hours he would write me 
definitely on the subject." 

Mr. Lincoln's own opinion of Mr. Cameron was so had 
as to make him think that the mere appointment of Mr. 
Cameron by him to a cabinet position would of itself de- 
stroy his own great reputation for honesty. According 
to his biographer, he said : 

* Lamon's " Life of Lincoln," p. 459. 



76 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

" All that I am in the world — the Presidency and all else — I owe 
to that opinion of me which the people express when they call me 
Honest Old Abe. Now what will they think of their honest Abe when 
he appoints Simon Cameron to be his familiar adviser ?" 

The appointment was made. At the head of the Navy 
Department, where, too, as in the War Department, it was 
absolutely essential to the people's safety that we should 
have vigor, honesty, and knowledge, a man was placed who 
knew nothing whatever about ships or naval affairs, and 
who had never shown any qualifications for the office. He 
was a party man, appointed for party reasons. 

The result was what was to be expected. 

The Government was compelled to purchase large quan- 
tities of material of all kinds — arms and supplies for the 
army, and vessels for the transport service and the navy. 
To the ordinary lay mind it would seem natural and rea- 
sonable that vessels to be purchased should be fitted for 
the use they were to be put to. The arms to be bought 
should have been such as could be of service. And it was 
very clear that the men, of all others, who would be the 
best judges of what was needed by the two branches of 
the service in the way of ships and arms would be the of- 
ficers of the navy and army. And the officers of the navy, 
in the beginning, had nothing else on which they could 
well be employed except these very purchases. For we 
had no vessels for them to command. For some reason, 
however, best known to the men who conducted the affairs 
of the country at the time, the political friends of Congress- 
men and cabinet members were found, of all men in the 
United States, to be the only ones having the needed skill 
and knowledge which fitted them to make purchases for 
the Government. 

The purchasing of vessels for the Navy Department at 



FALSE REPUBLICANISM. 77 

t ho porl of New York was taken from the commandant 
of the Navy-yard there, and transferred to a man of whom 
a Souse of Representatives Committee* says that he had 

"never had the slightest experience in (ho now and responsible 
duties which he was called upon to discharge, either in the naval 
Bervice, the building or buying ami selling of ships, or in any pursuit 

calling for a knowledge of their construction, capacity, or value, never 
having spent an hour in either." 

The committee farther say that 

ik The evidence was abundant before the committee, that if it had 
been necessary to obtain the services of any gentlemen outside of the 
navy itself, those gentlemen, combining from experience and educa- 
tion the knowledge most calculated to fit them for this duty, inde- 
pendent of outside aid, could have been secured without the slightest 
difficulty for a salary not exceeding $5000 for the year." 

The other points of the affair can be best given in a lit- 
eral extract from the committee's report. They say of 
this purchasing agent that he 

" received as compensation during the period of seven weeks pre- 
vious to the 6th day of September, when this testimony was taken, 
the enormous sum of $5 1,584, as admitted by himself before the 
committee. When this testimony was taken, information of its ex- 
traordinary character and import was communicated to the depart- 
ment, in the hope that an abuse so glaring, when pointed out, might 
be corrected. Yet, notwithstanding the department became thus pos- 
I of the information that its own agent was, by this system of 
commissions, amassing a private fortune, the committee have been 
surprised to learn, from a recent communication from the Xavy De- 
partment furnishing them with the numbers and prices of vessels 
purchased by Mr. Morgan for the Government since said 6th day of 
September, that the cost of those thus purchased by him amounts in 
the aggregate to the sum of f 1,736, 992. If he has received the same 

* Ilouse of Representatives, Thirty-seventh Congress Second S j. 
. Report No. 2. 



18 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

rate of compensation since as before that date, there must be added 
to the sum of $51,584 paid him before that date the further com- 
pensation of 843,424 for services rendered since, making in all the 
sum of §95,008 paid to a single individual for his services as agent 
of the Government since the 15th day of July, a period of four and 
one-half months." 

And the committee add : 

" The committee do not find in the transaction the less to censure 
in the fact that this arrangement between the Secretary of the Navy 
and Mr. Morgan was one between brothers-in-law." 

Five thousand carbines belono-ino; to the Government 
were sold to a private individual for $3.50 apiece, and 
were immediately repurchased for the Government for $22 
apiece, making a difference on this one transaction of 
nearly $90,000. One lot of these carbines suffered this 
process of sale and repurchase twice. They were first sold 
by the Government at a price merely nominal, and were 
repurchased at $15 apiece. They w T ere again sold by the 
Government at the price above stated, of $3.50, and again 
repurchased at $22. How many other times these arms 
did service under the purchase and sale treatment, or 
whether they ever did service in the field, did not appear. 

A certain contractor testified that he furnished supplies 
to the Government to the amount of $800,000, on which 
he made a profit of over forty per cent. The purchases 
from him were made in direct violation of law. Two pol- 
iticians in New York, one of them an old personal and 
political friend of the Secretary of War, had $2,000,000 
of Government money placed in a private banking-house, 
subject to their order for the purchase of supplies, in vio- 
lation of law: $250,000 of this money they spent with- 
out ever accounting for any of it. It was in evidence that 
of this amount $10,000 was paid for a large quantity of 



FALSE REPUBLICANISM. 7fl 

groceries supplied by a dealer in hardware. And another 

sum of over $20,000 was paid for "straw hats and linen 
trousers." But no one in the army saw any of our troops 
decked in this fantastic costume. Within the period of 
one mouth 6151,000 was paid for fortifications which 
were to be constructed at St. Louis, before even the con- 
tract for doing the work was executed. Two steamers 
were purchased by a friend of high Government officials 
for about 8100,000, and were immediately sold to the 
Government for $200,000. One steamer was chartered to 
the Government for $2500 a day, and the Government paid 
$135,000 for a period in which she lay at a wharf before 
she was ever once used. One railroad company received 
for transportation in one year from the Government over 
$3,500,000, being an excess over the company's entire 
earnings for the previous year of $1,350,000, or about 
forty per cent. And the rates charged for this transpor- 
tation were about thirty-three and one-third per cent, in 
excess of the rates paid by private individuals. The broth- 
er-in-law of the president of this railroad company was 
Mr. Lincoln's Secretary of War. 

These are merely single instances of the way in which 
the people's money was wasted by the party leaders and 
their political supporters. 

That was not all. In every war, under any form of 
government, there has generally been more or less waste 
of the public money. It remained for the great republic 
of modern times to give to the w T orld the most unique 
exhibition of campaigning recorded in history. Not only 
did we waste our own men and money, but we fed and 
clothed the army of the enemy we were fighting. The 
< lonfederate forces got the very supplies which kept them 
in the field by trade carried on through the lines under 



80 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

written permits given by the President of the United 
States. 

The report of a Congressional committee states :* 

"The testimony before the committee discloses the shameless and 
treasonable character of the trade which has been carried on within 
the rebel lines with rebel agents, and for the use of rebel armies. 
The amount of supplies necessary for the support of rebel armies, 
which, under the cover of this trade, has been sent through the rebel 
lines at New Orleans, Memphis, Xorfolk, and other places, almost sur- 
passes belief. Xegotiations have been entered into and correspond- 
ence carried on by citizens of the United States with rebel agents to 
deliver for the rebel government provisions and other necessary ar- 
ticles to sustain the rebel armies in return for cotton/' 

And the report adds : 

"General Canby states that the rebel armies east and west of 
the Mississippi River have been mainly supplied for the last twelve 
months by the unlawful trade carried on on that river."f 

* Report on " Trade with Rebellious States," Thirty-eighth Con- 
gress, Second Session, House of Representatives Report, Xo. 24. 

f Here is a specimen of the permits under which this trade was 
carried on : 

" An authorized agent of the Treasury Department having, with 
the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, contracted for the cot- 
ton above mentioned, and the parties having agreed to sell and de- 
liver the same to said agent, 

"It is ordered that the cotton, moving in compliance with and for 
fulfilment of said contract, and being transported to said agent, or 
under his direction, shall be free from seizure or detention by any 
officer of the Government ; and commandants of military departments, 
districts, posts, and detachments, naval stations, gunboats, flotillas, 
and fleets, will observe this order, and give the said * * * their 
agents, transports, and means of transportation, free and unobstruct- 
ed passage, for the purpose of getting said cotton, or any part there- 
of, through the lines, and safe conduct within our lines, while the 
same is moving, in compliance with regulations of the Secretary of 



FALSE REPUBUOANISM. 81 

I > 11 1 party influence went further than controlling the 
snry and the War and Navy departments. It con- 
trolled the appointment of our generals. Politician* as- 
pired to the glory of the soldier. They were men without 
either education or experience. One of them at least had 
never in his life so much as handled a battalion or a com- 
pany on a parade -round. Men of this kind were given 
general's commissions and the command of armies; and 
through their ignorance and incapacity thousands of better 
men than themselves lost their lives. 

But party influence interfered with the management of 
our armies in the field. General M'Clellan may or may 
not have been a great general. It is certain that he never 
was allowed to fight his campaigns in his own way. He 
should have been allowed to fight them in his own way or 
not at all. Intriguing party leaders, for party reasons, did 
everything that could be done to hinder his success. 

The affairs of the Government in all departments, 
throughout the war, were managed by party men on true 
party principles — that is, the people's offices were used, not 
for the service of the people, but for the service of party, 
to reward party men for party work. One party is no 
better and no worse than another. It is the natural result 
of our system of party rule. 

Let us see, if we can, what was the cost to the people of 
the United States of these party methods. 

In the nine years — 1862 to 1870, both inclusive — during 
which came the war of the rebellion, our general govern- 
ment alone spent more than §5,500,000,000. From the 

the Treasury, and I'm- fulfilment of said contract with the agent of 
the Government. Abraham Lincoln. 91 

it \n. 21. v '/< Tltirt>i-> igJUh ' 

4* 



82 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

organization of the national government down to the year 
1862, there had been only two years when its expenditures 
reached the figure of $74,000,000. At that rate of former 
years, we may assume that the ordinary expenditures of 
those nine years, without any war expenses, would have 
been in all not more than $600,000,000. The difference 
between these two amounts, about $4,900,000,000, stands 
for a part of the cost of the war of the rebellion in mere 
money. But, aside from these expenditures of the national 
government, there were immense sums of money paid out 
by the States and cities and towns all over the country for 
war purposes. And the disbursements for the war have 
not, even in 1879, all yet been made. Five thousand mill- 
ions of dollars is doubtless far within the figures of the 
money expenditure for the war made by the general gov- 
ernment alone. 

At least one-half that amount of money, $2,500,000,000, 
was simply thrown away, or stolen, through the incompe- 
tency or dishonesty of our public officials. From the be- 
ginning to the end of the war the waste of the people's 
money was utterly unchecked. General Schofield, as high 
authority as could be cited, has written :* 

" It is capable of demonstration, to the satisfaction of any average 
military mind, that our late war might have been brought to a suc- 
cessful conclusion in two years instead of four, and at half the cost 
in men and money, if any one soldier of fair ability had been given 
the absolute control of military operations, and of the necessary mil- 
itary resources of the country.' 7 

Every intelligent man who saw anything of the w 7 ay in 
which the war was carried on knows that to be a moderate 
statement. 

* Cited in " The Army of the United States," by General J. A. 
Garfield, North America?! Review, May-June, 1878. 



FALSI-; REPUBLICANISM, 

Every one will admit that we began the war under great 
difficulties — that an immense army was to be organized 
and supplied, and that the machinery for that purpose was 
not then in working order to organize and supply it. Bu1 

who was the proper man to be plaeed in charge of this 
enormous work of organizing and supplying this great 
army which was to fight for national existence — a party 
politician, or an honest and capable Boldier? 

Mr. Lincoln's opinion of his Secretary, of his " familiar 
adviser," was strictly accurate, as Mr. Lincoln well knew, 
when he placed him at the head of the War Department. 
Take the most charitable view that we can of that appoint- 
ment, and is it anything more or less than the fulfilment 
by the President of the Linked States of an agreement to 
sell an office ? 

But wherein consisted really the greatest injury to the 
people's interests and the people's conscience ? Perhaps 
not in the mere making or performing of an agreement to 
appoint, but in the character of the appointment. Lord 
Bacon admitted that he took bribes, but claimed, by way 
of defence, that he always gave just decrees. If Mr. Lin- 
coln could have said to the people, " It is true that my 
friends bought votes for me at the nominating convention 
by promising that I should appoint Mr. Cameron to the 
War Department, and I, knowing the terms of the pur- 
chase, have taken the votes and paid the price. Buying 
votes is indeed a bad thing. But then Mr. Cameron is, of 
all men, the one most fit to fill that high office now in my 
gift. And by my oath of office, which weighs heavily on 
my conscience, I am bound to appoint him for his great 
fitness, and so I must do" — the position would be different. 

Mr. Lincoln was at last compelled to summarily dismiss 

3 8 fcary. And, of course, the dismissal was made in 



84 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

terms fitting the conduct which had been its cause. Here 
are its words: 

"Hon. Simon Cameron, Secretary of War: 

" Dear Sir, — I have this day appointed Hon. Edwin M. Stanton to 
be Secretary of War, and you to be Minister Plenipotentiary to Rus- 
sia. Very truly, A. Lincoln.''* 

That was not the end. The dismissed Secretary wished 
to have it appear on the record that he had not been dis- 
missed at all, that he had voluntarily resigned his office, 
that his resignation had been honorably accepted, and that 
he had been honorably appointed to another position, 
where he, a man of high personal worth, was fitly to repre- 
sent a great nation at an imperial court. As a matter of 
fact, he had not resigned. To make it appear so, it would 
be necessary that there should be a falsification of the 
correspondence between himself and the President, of the 
records of the people of the United States. And more 
than that, it was necessary that the President of the United 
States should be a party to this falsification of public 
records. 

I take from the same biographer the account of the next 
scene, as given from the witness to the earlier incidents. 

Colonel M'Clure says :f 

" In my presence the proposition was made and determined upon 
to ask Lincoln to allow a letter of resignation to be antedated, and to 
write a kind acceptance of the same in reply. The effort was made, 
in which Mr. Chase joined, although perhaps ignorant of all the cir- 
cumstances of the case, and it succeeded. The record shows that Mr. 
Cameron voluntarily resigned, while in point of fact he was sum- 
marily removed without notice." 

* Lamon's "Life of Lincoln," p. 461. 
f Ibid., p. 462. 



FALSE REPUBLICANISM. 86 

H<>\v did it happen that Mr. Lincoln, a man of the most 

honest intentions, and moved at all times by the purest 
wishes for the people's good, appointed to office <'«>rnipt 
men, knowing them to be corrupt; that the stealing of 

money and the waste of life, which he could have made 
impossible by the mere giving or withholding his name on 
paper, went on without intermission from the beginning 
of the war to the end, with his knowledge, and with n<> 
substantial interference on his part! 

With all his high purposes, with all his great eloquence, 
and with all the wisdom and shrewdness which Mr. Lin- 
coln undoubtedly had, and whatever may have been his 
theories as to the duties of a President of the United 
States, in practice he always regarded party interests in his 
official action. His appointments were party appoint- 
ments. In law, he, the President of the United States, had 
in his hands power which he was bound to use with a 
view only to the people's good. In fact, he gave the use 
of this power to the party men who surrounded him, to 
be used for party interests. That he intended to use his 
power wrongly for his own interest, no fair man can be- 
lieve. That he allowed his power to be used for the in- 
terests of his party, and to the great injury of the inter- 
ests of the people, no fair man can doubt. 

The war was ended. The most remarkable state of af- 
fairs that has ever been seen in history called for wise ac- 
tion. One race — men of free blood, of free lives — had been 
conquered. They had been conquered, not by a foreign 
tyrant, but by a free Government, against which they had 
rebelled; and they were to keep their freedom. Another 
race, of slaves, were to be made free. They had got their 

I >m at the gift of the conquerors of their old mas 
And these slaves and their old masters were to live on the 



86 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

same soil, and have the same rights under the law. These 
two races had been deadly foes, and they were to be 
made into one people under the same laws, if that could be 
done. The task no doubt was a hard one ; it needed wise 
rulers and the help of all men. It was the great work to 
be done by the administration of President Grant. Let us 
see how that administration gives its teachings. 

Here was another President, a man of thoroughly hon- 
est intentions, a man of great strength of will, who had 
done the people great service, who began his administra- 
tion with at least an attempt to perform the duties of his 
office to the best of his ability. Especially it was clear 
that President Grant at the outset of his term had strong 
prejudices against the professional party men, and intend- 
ed not to be guided by them in his official action. 

No man can fail to be influenced by his surroundings. 
President Grant was no exception to the general rule. 
There is no reason to think that he at any time changed 
his principles, or that he had in any part of his service as 
President any intention to do anything other than what 
he thought his duty. But he, too, submitted, as have all 
Presidents in late years, to the control of the party leaders, 
as nearly as can be gathered from his actions. Some of 
the events during his term of office are pertinent to this 
part of the discussion, and will be here given ; and the at- 
tempt will be made to examine only such matters as admit 
of no real difference of opinion. 

In the State of Louisiana there was, in the year 1872, a 
bitter contest for the control of the State government be- 
tween the two prominent political parties. There was a 
dispute as to the office of governor, whether the Repub- 
lican or Democratic candidate was elected. A suit was 
brought in the United States Court by the Republican 



FALSE REPUBLICANISM. 

candidate for that office of governor. A commitfc 
the United States Senate, of whom a majority were Re- 
publicans, and who cannot be presumed to have been un- 
duly opposed to the policy of the Republican executive 
and cabinet, reported, as to this suit in the United States 
Court, as follows : 

k ' It is at least questionable whether this bill on its face presented 
within the jurisdiction of the Federal court. * * * Conceding; 
however, that the bill did present a ease within the jurisdiction of 
the court, that jurisdiction was limited by the scope of the bill, and 
gave no warrant to the extraordinary proceedings which were subse- 
quently had in the ease. The subsequent attempt of the court, on a 
bill in equity, to determine the title of Warmouth, Wharton, and oth- 
ers to act as State canvassers, was a matter wholly beyond the juris- 
diction of the Federal courts.'' 

The fact that the Federal court had no jurisdiction did 
not, however, hinder a United States judge from making 
an order which gave final judgment, before the defendant 
was ever brought into court, declaring one board of can- 
is to be illegally constituted, and forbidding them 
to take any official action on the returns. The order, al- 
though made by a judge, was, in point of law, worth pre- 
cisely the paper on which it was written. 

This order was followed by another, made equally in 
defiance of law, of which the same Senate committee say : 

" It is impossible to conceive of a more irregular, illegal, and in 
every way inexcusable act on the part of the judge. Conceding the 
power of the court to make such an order, the judge out of court 
had no more authority to make it than the marshal. It had not 
even the form of judicial process. It was not sealed, nor was it 
signed by the clerk, and had no more legal effect than an order sign- 
ed by any private citizen." 

The Senate committee sav further: 



88 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

"Viewed in any light in which your committee can consider them, 
the order and injunction made and granted by Judge Durell in this 
cause are most reprehensible, erroneous in point of law, and are 
wholly void for want of jurisdiction." 

The order, of which the committee used these words, di- 
rected the United States Marshal to 

" forthwith take possession of the building known as the Mechanics' 
Institute, and occupied as the State-House, for the assembling therein 
of the Legislature in the city of Xew Orleans, and hold the same sub- 
ject to the further order of this court, and meantime to prevent all un- 
lawful assemblages therein." 

This order was signed, or claimed to have been signed, at 
midnight of the 5th December, 1872. On the 3d Decem- 
ber, 1872, the Attorney-General of the United States in 
Washington telegraphed the following message : 

" Department of Justice, December 3d, 1S72. 
11 S. B. Packard, U. S. Marshal, 

JVew Orleans, La. : 
" You are to euforce the decrees and mandates of the United 
States Courts, no matter by whom resisted ; and General Emory will 
furnish you with all necessary troops for that purpose. 

" Geo. H. Williams, Attorney- General.'''' 

It is not unreasonable to conclude that this telegraphic 
despatch was sent for the purpose for which it was used. 
The purpose for which it was used was the execution 
of the " void " order just given. And that was the only 
" mandate " there was to be " enforced." The use that 
was made of this " void order " was forthwith telegraphed 
to the President of the United States by his brother-in- 
law, one of the men who used it, in these words-: 

"New Orleans, December 6th, 1S72. 
" President Grant, — Marshal Packard took possession of the State 
House this morning with a military posse, in obedience to a mandate 



FALSE REPUBLICANISM. 89 

of the Circuit Court.* * * Decree of the court just rendered declares 
Warmouth's returning-board illegal. * * * The decree was sweep- 
ing in its provisions, and if enforced, will save the Republican ma- 
jority, and give Louisiana a Republican Legislature and State Govern- 
ment. * * * Jas. F. Casey." 

The legally elected Governor of the State of Louisiana, 
who was hindered by the United States troops, acting un- 
der this void " mandate n of a United States judge, from 
exercising the duties of his office, telegraphed to the Presi- 
dent of the United States in these words : 

■•His Excellency U. S. Grant, 

President of the United States : 
" Claiming to be Governor elect of this State, I beg you, in the 
name of all justice, to suspend recognition of either of the dual gov- 
ernments now in operation here, until there can be laid before you 
all facts and both sides touching the legitimacy of either govern- 
ment. The people denying the legitimacy of Pinchback's govern- 
ment and its legislature simply ask to be heard, through committees 
of many of our best citizens on eve of departure for Washington, 
before you recognize the one or the other of said governments. I do 
not believe we will be condemned before we are fully heard." 

The President of the United States made no answer 
whatever to the respectful written communication of the 
Governor elect of the State of Louisiana. His Attorney- 
General, however, presumably by the President's directions, 
sent the following reply : 

11 Hon. John M'Enery, — Your visit with a hundred citizens will be 
unavailing, so far as the President is concerned. His decision is made, 
and cannot.be changed ; and the sooner it is acquiesced in, the soon- 
er good order and peace will be restored. 

"Geo. H. Williams, Attorney- General." 

^Yho can say that in these one hundred years no discov- 
eries have been made in constitutional procedure ? In an- 



90 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

cient times it took years and a war to crush a government. 
It was here done in less than twenty days, without a drop 
of blood, by a piece of paper called a " mandate " of a 
court. And with what ease ! Courts in former years 
were in the habit of hearing argument with parties before 
them. They took time to deliberate and render judgment. 
Here everything was done without any of the tedious de- 
lays, any of the weary wrangles attending the administra- 
tion of justice in ancient times and under ancient forms. 
Judgment was given in the presence of only one party — 
the sworn testimony before the Congressional committee 
went so far as to say, in the presence of neither party. 

In the same State, at a later period, the members of one 
House of the State Legislature were expelled from their 
place of meeting by the troops of the United States, act- 
ing under orders from the department at Washington. 

In 1867 the Governor of the same State was "removed 
from office," and another governor appointed, by a com- 
mon army order of a general of United States forces. 

And so late as the year 1875, General Sheridan, of the 
United States army, sent to the Secretary of War a de- 
spatch containing the following words : 

" I think that the terrorism now existing in Louisiana, Mississippi, 
and Arkansas could be entirely removed, and confidence and fair 
dealing established, by the arrest and trial of the ringleaders of the 
armed white leagues. If Congress would pass a bill declaring them 
banditti, they could be tried by a military commission." 

This despatch meant that United States citizens should 
be hung or shot without a trial by a court and jury. Gen- 
eral Sheridan is a great cavalryman, but a poor lawyer, and 
no statesman at all. He is a wonderful man in his place 
— on the field of battle. His action was what might have 
been expected from an impulsive soldier. From the Pres- 



FALSI-: REPUBLICANISM. 91 

[dent of the United States and his cabinet, however, the 
country, of coarse, looked for wise and temperate counsels, 

and of course the country had them. The answer of the 
Secretary of War to this despatch was as follows: 
>k Gen. P. II. Siikkidan, New Orleans, La. : 

kk Your telegram is received. The President and all of us have 
full confidence, ami thoroughly approvi your course" 

And the President of the United States, in a message to 

Congress, said of this proposed course of General Sheridan : 

11 H never proposed to do an illegal act, nor expressed a determina- 
tion to proceed beyond what the law might authorize for the punishment 
of the crimes which had been committed, and the commission of 
which cannot be successfully denied." 

Lawyers in this country had been in the habit of be- 
lieving that it was not within the power of a general of 
the army to shoot citizens of the United States without a 
fair trial in a court. It is w 7 ell that they should be advised 
of their errors by a great publicist. 

These arc single cases. The political history of the 
United States in the years since the war has been a long 
story of corruption and misconduct on the part of public 
officer-. 

Since the year 1870, we have spent on our navy alone 
over 8180,000,000, for which we ought to have an effi- 
cient fleet of war vessels. We have nothing whatever to 
show for it. The money has been simply throw T n away. 
The account given in 18/4 by Admiral Porter of the con- 
dition of our navy is now as true as it was then. He 
then wrote :* 

" I may therefore say that our navy, as compared with others, is 

* Report Admiral D. D. Porter, printed with the Report of th 
retary of the Navy, Dec. 1-t, 1874, pp. 199-201. 



92 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

like a foot-soldier armed with a pistol, encountering a mounted man 
clad in armor and carrying a breech-loading rifle. It would be easy 
to imagine how little chance the man on foot would have should a 
conflict occur. * * * 

" There is not a navy in the world that is not in advance of us as 
regards ships and guns, and I, in common with the older officers of 
the service, feel an anxiety on the subject which can only be appre- 
ciated by those who have to command fleets and take them into 
battle. 

" If called upon at this time to command the naval forces of the 
United States, in case of hostilities, a position which it is my ambition 
and my right to fill, I should be put to my wit's end to succeed with 
such an incongruous set of vessels as we now possess. Prudence 
would probably recommend that they be shut up in port, and no fleet 
operations be attempted with them; sending the wooden vessels 
abroad singly, to do all the damage possible until captured by the 
enemy ; our fifty-gun frigates perhaps succumbing to a two-gun clip- 
per armed with ten-inch rifles, and our small cruisers driven off by 
merchant vessels carrying rifle-guns of lesser calibre. 

" This is no exaggeration. It is simply what will occur when we 
go to war, and it would be much better to have no navy at all than 
one like the present — half -armed and with only half speed — unless 
we inform the world that our establishment is only intended for 
times of peace, and to protect the missionaries against South Sea 
savages and Eastern fanatics." 

The revenue legislation of the country and the action 
of executive departments have, in repeated instances, been 
framed and guided in the interest of informers and spies, 
to enable them to plunder honorable merchants. Officers 
of the law, whose duty it was to protect the citizen, have 
used their power to extort money from honest men. It 
is matter of common knowledge that members of Con- 
gress have been paid for their votes. It is matter of re- 
corded testimony that judges of our highest courts have 
corruptly received money, in bank-notes, the currency of 
thieves. In one form or another the party politicians, in 



FALSE REPUBLICANISM. «.»:; 

late years, have been accumulating fortune.-, by plundering 
the people. In the feudal times the kings of England, 
ruling by divine right, raised their revenues by force, in 
open violation of the law. In our own day and country, 

the rulers chosen by a free people levy taxes, under the 
law, and steal the money that is paid into the public treas- 
ury. The methods only have changed. 

Finally, in the great commercial metropolis of the Vnit- 
ed States, the science of party politics reached its highest 
development and its perfect fruit. 

There had been in New York, as elsewhere, nominally 
two political parties. But centralization was the order of 
the day. It surely was a discovery of genius that one man 
should manage both parties. On the surface, in the city 
of New York, there were apparently bitter contests be- 
tween Republicans and Democrats. Intelligent citizens 
were deluded with the idea that there really were two sets 
of party men, who were battling earnestly and honestly 
for great political principles. The statesmen of the city 
of New York, calling themselves by two sets of names, 
would appear before the public, make their party platforms 
and resolutions, denounce one another's political sins, and 
then quietly and copiously dine and wine together, make 
up together their lists of candidates for public office, and 
arrange together with accuracy how the repeaters should 
roll up the majorities. And after honest citizens had cast 
their ballots for the candidates placed before them, with 
an innocent idea that they were in some vague way or 
other enjoying the franchises of free government, the men 
who arranged the scenery and characters of the play pro- 
ceeded to plunder the public treasury, and rob private in- 
dividuals. 

These men, who controlled political affairs in the city of 



94 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

New York, established as thorough a tyranny as has been 
seen in any civilized country in many years. Neither life, 
liberty, nor property was safe. One prominent member of 
the New York bar was struck down in the street and left 
for dead, because, as was believed, he had made himself 
too prominent in his opposition to the schemes of certain 
powerful men in the city of New York. Another was 
put in prison, without bail, for honestly protecting the 
property of other men that had been trusted to his care. 
Corporation elections were carried by corrupt orders of 
the courts. Bankers' offices were entered in broad day- 
light, and securities taken from them under the process of 
a Court of Chancery. The high prerogative writ of habeas 
corpus, the great bulwark provided by the English com- 
mon law for the liberty of the subject, was used for the 
discharge from prison of convicted criminals. The reme- 
dial process of a Court of Equity, originally designed for 
the preservation of property for its rightful owners, was 
used for the purpose of taking it from them and giving 
it to thieves. As we now look back on it, the adminis- 
tration of justice in the city of New York a few years 
since has an aspect almost ludicrous. It was not then lu- 
dicrous. In England the courts had at times been made 
the means of political oppression, but they had been cre- 
ated, and had in the main been used, for the purpose of 
doing justice between man and man, and of protecting 
property. To use them for the purpose of simple steal- 
ing — that was an achievement reserved for the statesmen 
of a free democracy in the nineteenth century. 

The results of the last Presidential election give us the 
latest instance of the legitimate workings of party and 
party rule. 

We have in the Presidential office a man as to whose 



FALSE REPUBLICANISM, 
strict personal honesty no one has a doubt. II« i began bis 

administration by calling to his cabinet men of honor and 
ability. He, too, made it clear that his intention was, in 
his official action, not to be guided by the wishes of party 
schemers. He was elected to his office for the reason that 
the people believed he was going to give them civil ser- 
vice reform. He begins his administration with a declara- 
tion that there are to be no removals from office for mere 
party reasons. Every honest man throughout the country 
applauds him. Sound principle and consistency both re- 
quire, too, that there should be no appointments to office 
for mere party reasons. He follows this declaration with 
an order (in effect) that executive officers shall not take 
any part in influencing elections. Again, every honest 
man applauds him. There can be no doubt of the wisdom 
of his action. At least he has none. In England, so long 
ago as 1779, the British House of Commons resolved that 
"it is highly criminal in any minister or ministers, or oth- 
er servants under the Crown of Great Britain, directly or 
indirectly, to use the powers of office in the election of 
representatives to serve in Parliament, and an attempt at 
such influence will at all times be resented by this House 
as aimed at its own honor, dignity, and independence, and 
as an infringement of the dearest rights of every subject 
throughout the empire, and tending to sap the basis of 
this free and happy constitution." The present President, 
before his election, announced his determination to serve 
in any event for only one term. If he had the capacity 
and honesty to serve the people well, his services would, 
indeed, at the end of one term merely begin to have their 
value. And then, if ever, should they be at the people's 
command. But having made and announced that deci- 
sion, he has no personal ends to serve, no fears of party 



96 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

men to influence him. And he has all the power. He 
has not changed his mind as to his duty. No new expe- 
rience has shown him the folly of his own opinion or *of 
British legislation. He was elected to office, not because 
the people at large knew him to be a great man, for they 
knew nothing of him at all, but because they believed him 
to be an honest man, and that he would honestly carry out 
his promises of giving them a pure civil service. They 
still believe him to be honest. 

But the one thing that he promised to do he has not 
done. 

Civil service reform meant only that public servants 
were to be appointed for nothing whatever but their fit- 
ness. A very large number of the men who had to do 
with carrying the election in certain doubtful States in fa- 
vor of the present President have been appointed by that 
President to offices under the general Government. Who 
is. there that believes that these appointments have been 
made for the fitness of the men ? Most men believe that 
these appointments have been made because of some agree- 
ment or understanding that, if certain votes were counted 
in a certain way, the men who did the counting should be 
paid for it — with the people's offices. No one thinks the 
President made the bargain. He only took its fruits, and 
paid the price. 

And the main feature of the last Presidential election is 
this, that the unelected candidate is charged with having 
made an attempt, which failed, to buy electoral votes with 
his own money, and the elected President is believed to 
have paid for electoral votes with the people's offices. 

For a President of the United States to buy votes with 
his own money is a thing bad enough. For him to buy 
them with either promises or gifts of the people's offices 



FALSE REPUBLICANISM. 

[a somewhat worse. Eis money is his own, to do with as 

he wills. The offices arc the people's, which he, their ( Jhief 
Magistrate, is bound to bestow on the fittest men, and not 

to use in any way for his own profit; and, both in law 
and in morals, it makes slight difference whether a Presi- 
dent of the United States himself makes the bargain to 
buy votes, or simply carries out the bargain made by other 
men, and pays for the votes after they arc cast in his own 
favor. 

But the most remarkable instance in our history, as far 
as I am aware, of the power of party, party habits, and 
party influences over official action, we have from Mr. 
Buchanan. It will be best given in the words of one of 
the actors in the scene, the Hon. Thomas L. Clingman.* 

"About the middle of December [1860] I had occasion to see the 
Secretary of the Interior on some official business. On my entering 
the room, Mr. Thompson said to me, ' Clingman, I am glad you have 
called, for I intended presently to go up to the Senate to see you. I 
have been appointed commissioner by the State of Mississippi to go 
down to North Carolina to get your State to secede, and I wished to 
talk with you about your Legislature before I start down in the morn- 
ing to Raleigh, and to learn what you think of my chances of suc- 
cess/ I said to him, ' I did not know that you had resigned.' He 
answered, ' Oh no, I have not resigned.' ' Then,' I replied, 'I suppose 
you resign in the morning.' 'No,' he answered, 'I do not intend to 
resign, for Mr. Buchanan wished us all to hold on and go out with 
him on the 4th of March.' 'But,' said I, 'does Mr. Buchanan know 
for what purpose you are going to North Carolina ?' ' Certainly lie 
knows my object.' Being surprised by this statement, I told Mr. 
Thompson that Mr. Buchanan was probably so much perplexed by 
his situation that he had not fully considered the matter, and that, as 
lie was already involved in difficulty, we ought not to add to his bur- 
dens, and then suggested to Mr. Thompson that he had better see 
Mr. Buchanan again, and, by way of inducing him to think the matter 

* Clingman's " Speeches," vol. i. p. 526. 



98 A TKUE REPUBLIC. 

over, mention what I had been saying to him. Mr. Thompson said, 
4 Well, I can do so, but I think he fully understands it.' 

" In the evening I met Mr. Thompson at a small social party, and 
as soon as I approached him he said, .* I knew I could not be mis- 
taken. I told Mr. Buchanan all you said, and he told me he wished 
me to go, and hoped I might succeed.'' I could not help exclaiming, 
1 Was there ever before any potentate who sent out his own cabinet 
ministers to incite an insurrection against his government?' The 
fact that Mr. Thompson did go on the. errand, and had a public re- 
ception before the Legislature, and returned to his position in the 
cabinet, is known ; but this incident serves to recall it." 

Assuming this narrative to be entirely correct, it may 
be that the acts of President Buchanan here told did not 
constitute, in law, the crime of high-treason. But where 
is the difference in common-sense? A President of the 
United States " sending his own cabinet ministers to in- 
cite an insurrection against his government !" How did 
this happen? Party feeling, and the life -long habit ac- 
quired by Mr. Buchanan in party service, of always work- 
ing for party success, is the only and the sufficient expla- 
nation for this most singular act. Mr. Buchanan had taken 
his oath to " preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution 
of the United States." It may well be doubted if it once 
entered his mind, at that time, or ever afterward, that he 
had committed so much as a slight impropriety of con- 
duct. Not the least of the results of party rule, as we 
have had it developed in this country, is the fact that 
men seem, in the violence and great temptations of party 
conflict, utterly to lose their ordinary moral perceptions. 
Things that they would condemn in other men, or in them- 
selves at other times, they do without thought or hesita- 
tion. For we need not, even with all the corruption in 
our modern political history, conclude that all or even 
many of our public men have been devoid of common 



FALSE REPUBLICANISM, 

principla They have Dot been. The power of parry has 

the mischief. The party men simply ha\ 
to the immenfl ire oi their Burroundii j 

So far, as to ti of party on the use by public 

:' their official po* 

We come then to the other statement that was made 
at the beginning of the chapter — that Party has ch 
the people's rulers. How true is that \ 

We Bay that our public officers are chosen by the peo- 
ple. Is it a fact that the people really do elect their own 
public officers ! Taking universal suffrage precisely as we 
have it, are the men now in public office the men 
whom the people at large really wish to manage their _ 
eminent affairs ! Are these men really the choice of the 
people \ 

The people at large, on the day of election, have at most 
the choice between two men or sets of men ; and with the 
point who these two men or sets of men are to be, with 
the selection of the candidates, the people at large have 
little or nothing to do. It may be said that the people 
can and should have something to do with the selection 
of the candidates. However that may be, it is the fact 
that they do not. And we are here considering the way 
our system really operates. These candidates are simply 
for either party, by the leaders who control that 
party, or often by the one man who controls the party. 
One party retains the control of the Government for three 
or four Presidential terms, as the case may be. By that 
time sufficiently powerful interests may combine against it 
to induce the people to throw it aside for a new party. 
bo long as one party keeps control of our government 
affairs, so long a small handful of men in that pari 
always the same men for the whole time, substantially ap- 



100 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

point our public officers for us. When any one man or 
set of men in public office commits very glaring outrages, 
it often happens that that man, or set of men, will fail of 
getting the people's vote at the polls. In short, when the 
abuse of power goes beyond all endurable limits, we have 
a revolution — under the law — at the polls. But some- 
times those limits seem impossible to be reached. Do we 
often see a man of so bad a character as to make him cer- 
tain of defeat when supported by the ordinary party ma- 
chinery ? Do we often see a man of so bad a character as 
to fail of getting that support ? 

In theory and in law, the people elect their rulers. In 
fact, these rulers are not elected by the people, but are ap- 
pointed by the party leaders. The real working of the 
Government is controlled, not by the officials whom the 
people nominally elect, but by the party managers who 
really appoint those officials. These party managers hold, 
as such, no position known to the law ; they have no 
duties or responsibilities under the law. Usually they 
hold some official position for the purpose of drawing a 
salary from the people. But their real power they have, 
not from their official position, but because they control 
the party policy, and, above all, the party nominations. 
And they hold their real power in the State, not for any 
short term of years, but without any limit whatever as to 
time, simply until their tyranny becomes unbearable, and 
we have a peaceful revolution at the polls. 

When our Constitution of 1787 was formed, the Amer- 
ican people intended to use wisely the lesson they had 
from English history, and from all history. They had 
learned that irresponsible power in a hereditary monarch 
certainly made a tyranny. They said, therefore, we will 
have no hereditary king, and no tyranny by any man or 






FALSE REPUBLICAN] 10] 

:' men. They established, as they thought, a tro 
public — a government, of the people, by the people, foi the 

le. They established, as a matter of fact, a powerful 

rchy, a tyranny, of the people, by party, for party. 
They kept, as they thought, the real control of the Gov- 
ernment They kept, as a matter of fact, nothing but a 
right of peaceful revolution. Elsewhere tyranny and rev- 
olution both violate the law; with us they both follow 
it. Often, before our time, revolution lias resulted only in 
a change of tyrants ; with us it is still the same. We re- 
bel against the tyranny of one party ; we simply place our- 
selves under the rule of the other party ; and then again 
go through the same cycle of tyranny and revolt. 

The Constitution of the United States had been formed 
"to secure the blessings of liberty'' to the people of the 
United States in the year 1787, and their posterity after 
them. Surely in the Year of Grace 1871 the blessings of 
liberty had been manifold and varied, and perhaps of a 
kind not altogether contemplated by the founders of the 

rnment, or desired by their posterity. We have had 
one President inciting rebellion against the Government, 
another selling the highest office of the people in his gift, 
another overturning by force of arms the government of 

re, subjecting its people to the rule of plunderers, 
and refusing even the common decency of a hearing to its 
chief magistrate, who came simply to ask protection for 
his people's rights. Citizens of the United States have 
been imprisoned without due process, without any pr 
of law, and without bail. We have had the election of 
our rulers taken from us by party oligarchies. We have 
had the money of the people stolen and their lives w ; 
by the officers who should have guarded us from harm. 

have had our courts of justice used, not to pi 



102 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

life, liberty, and property, but to rob honest men, and open 
prison doors for convicted thieves. 

So long ago as the thirteenth century the barons of 
England took arms for wrongs lighter than these, and con- 
quered their liberties from an English king. One King 
of England lost his crown and his head for insisting on 
illegal revenues. Our own ancestors levied war against 
the most powerful monarch on the face of the earth for 
the right to vote their own taxes. All the grievances that 
all the colonies together suffered at the hands of the Home 
Government before the Revolutionary War were a mere 
trifle compared with what the people of the city of New 
York alone suffer at the hands of their rulers in a single 
year. But we bear our wrongs patiently, because we have 
ourselves made this Government under which we live, and 
because, as we think, we ourselves choose these men who 
make our laws and spend our money. 

But, it is sometimes said, the real cause of the present 
condition of our public affairs is the fact that we no longer 
have the same class of men in public life as in the years 
gone by. Where are the Websters, the Calhouns, the 
Clays, in our national Government of to-day, it may be ask- 
ed ? It is said we suffer from our own apathy ; we have 
in our own hands the remedy against these wrongs — we 
must choose a better class of men for our public officers. 

But why is it that we no longer have the same class of 
men as of old in public place ? How does it happen that 
our public men are no longer as able or upright as they 
were in former years? For, without imagining all the 
glory to have passed from the earth, it will be generally 
admitted that there has been a falling off in the character 
of the men in our public service. 

This is only another effect of party rule. 



FALSE REPUBLICANISM. 103 

No man can now hold office under our Government for 
any long time unless lie will sacrifice the interests of the 
people to the interests of part}-. The party leaders wish 

pliant men who will serve party, and not honest men who 
will serve only the people. They will not have in official 
position men whom they cannot control and use. The 
men they cannot control and use they drive from public 
life. 

The men who stay in public life are compelled to yield 
and submit to party. They cannot resist the immense 
party pressure which surrounds them. AVe have had not- 
ably three Presidents — Mr. Lincoln, General Grant, and Mr. 
Hayes — each of whom, as most men will agree, took office 
with the purpose of always serving the people without re- 
gard to the interests of party. They all at last gave them- 
selves more or less completely to the control of the party 
men. So long as they tried to do their simple duty to the 
people, they found themselves in the midst of enemies, 
without friends. They had to surrender. To resist w T ould 
take streno-th more than human. 

But is there any way out of this party tyranny ? May 
it not be that this party tyranny is a necessary incident of 
republican institutions in any form, that it is an evil which 
we must submit to, and bear as well as we can ? May it 
not be, even, that party has its good points, its advantages ? 

To answer these questions, we must consider what are 
the causes which bring party into existence, the nature of 
party, and its uses. 



104 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 



CHAPTER V. 

PARTY ITS CAUSES, ITS NATURE, AND ITS USES. 

All men will admit that party rule, as we have had it 
in this country, has been attended with great evils and 
abuses. But most men think that these evils are merely 
accidents of the time, that in some way party government 
can be kept and these evils can be removed, that these 
evils are far outweighed by the good results which party 
brings, and that party, with all its evils, is a machinery 
without which free government cannot exist. 

I believe this to be a mistake ; that these evils which we 
have had are not mere accidents, but that they are of the 
very essence of party ; that we cannot rid ourselves of these 
evils unless we rid ourselves of party ; that what men call 
the good results of party we should still get if we had no 
parties; that party, instead of being a machinery necessary 
to the existence of free government, is its most dangerous 
foe ; and that, in order to get anything which really de- 
serves the name of republican government, we must de- 
stroy party altogether. 

I am well aware that these views will be commonly 
deemed rank heresies. Yet they may be sound. And if 
they are sound, they are surely important. 

I shall then, in this chapter, attempt to show — 

1. How party, as we have had it, came into existence. 

2. What party, as we have had it, really is. 

3. What uses party, for us, really has. 

4. What we should do with it. 



r.UHT-iTS CAUSES, NATURE, and I 105 

And our first inquiry is, I Tow part}-, as we have it, came 

listence. 
The intention of the founders of our National and State 

constitutions was, that the people should both choose their 
public officers and control them. Looking to that end, 
they said, We will have our public servants hold office for 

short terms of years. Then, if a public servant does his 
work well, at the end of his term we can elect him again. 
If he does his work ill, at the end of his term we can drop 
him, and choose another man in his stead. 

The purpose was to keep all public servants dependent 
on the people — who were to be the source of all power, 
and were to control its use. 

And this system of a short term of years they made use 
of both for the members of the Legislature and for the 
Chief Executive. 

Another point is to be noted. As to their Chief Execu- 
tive, they provided no means for removing him at any time 
before the end of his term, in case he did his work ill. 
They said, in so many words, that he could be removed 
from ofliee only on u conviction of treason, bribery, or 
other high crimes and misdemeanors." He might use his 
power so unwisely as to bring ruin on the people; but if 
lie was honest in what he did, there was no remedy under 
the law. And, though nothing was said on the point, it 
was no doubt the intention that the same rule should hold 
as to the Legislature and other public servants. 

The English people remove the minister who commands 
their armies, not because he does his work well or ill, but 
because his ideas on the Church Liturgy are not what 
they should be. We remove our President, who com- 
mands our armies, not because he does his work well or 
ill, hut beeause the earth has made four journeys through 



106 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

space around that star which we call the sun. It is hard 
to say which we should most admire as a means of ascer- 
taining the tenure of office of public officials, the parlia- 
mentary or the astronomical system. 

It may be that this term system was the only one we 
could have. That is yet to be considered. But one point 
seems clear. 

If the Constitution had said, every public servant shall 
be removed as soon as he fails to do his work well, wheth- 
er he has been in office one month or one day, then we 
should have put the servant under pressure to do his work 
well. When, however, we said, a public servant shall hold 
his office for a term of four or two years, whether he does 
his work well or ill, and for another additional term of 
years if he can carry the next election, then we put the 
servant under pressure to carry the next election. And 
when we said (as we did in effect) all public servants shall 
depend for keeping their offices, not on whether they do 
their work well or ill, but on carrying the next election, 
then, instead of giving them each a separate interest to do 
his own work well, we gave them all one common interest 
to carry the next election. TTe made it certain that they 
would combine, and form parties, for the purpose of car- 
rying elections. 

But there was another point. The knowledge which all 
men had, that at the end of a fixed time there would be a 
large number of vacancies, made it certain that other men, 
who were not in office, would combine for the purpose of 
getting out the men who were in office, and getting in 
themselves. The term system was certain, then, to create 
two great parties for the purpose of carrying elections. 
The men who were in formed a party to keep office. The 
men who were out formed a party to get office. It may 



PARTY— ITS CAUSES, NATURE, AND Q£ 1<W 

be that the term system had other results. It had at least 
this result 

griiah ministers, who depended for keeping their of- 
on keeping votes in Parliament, gave their best efforts 
eping th« Our public servants, who depend- 

r keeping their offices on carrying election-, in the 
same way gave their best efforts to carrying elections. 
Whether they wished it or not, our public servants were 
driven by this point in our system of government to make 
this work of carrying elections their regular profession. 
In that profession they gained great skill. In that work 
they were sure to have more skill than the ordinary citi- 
zens, who gave their time and thought to other things. 
The professional must always beat the amateur. These 
party organizations became vast and powerful. The lead- 
ers of these parties controlled party action. It came to be 
the fact (almost without an exception), that no man could 
be chosen to an office without a party nomination, and no 
man could have a party nomination against the will of the 
party leaders. And the party leaders would give party 
nominations to no man who did not do party service. 
The natural and certain result was, that party leaders, for 
party purposes, controlled the elections of public servants, 
and the action of public servants after they were elected. 

The expectation had been that this system of short 
terms would secure — 

1. The best men for the people's service. 

2. Their best work for the people. 

The result was that this term system secured — 

1. The best men for party service. 

2. Their best work for party. 

The expectation had been that the people, through this 
item of short terms, would themselves control — 



108 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

1. The election of public officers. 

2. The action of public officers after they were elected. 
The result was, as has been seen, that party controlled — 

1. The election of public officers. 

2. The action of public officers after they were elected. 
This result which we have had is not a strange or a 

new one. It has always come, wherever the cause has 
existed. 

Whenever, under any system of government, it has been 
necessary for the men who are in office to carry elections 
in order to keep in, and it has been possible for the men 
who are out of office by carrying elections to get in, then 
there have always been parties, or factions, which have 
been really only combinations for the purpose of getting 
place and power. Then public officers, instead of doing 
the work of their office, have always done election work ; 
instead of serving the people, they have served party; 
instead of being statesmen, they have been politicians. 
Whenever the system of government has been such as to 
create a profession of election carriers, that profession has 
always been filled with the men who were best fitted for 
it. It was so at Athens ; it was so at Rome ; it is so in 
England and in the United States ; and it is becoming so 
in France. It is so alike under a constitutional monarchy 
and under a false republic. It is only the natural opera- 
tion of natural laws. 

The mistake which we made, and which other peoples 
have made before us, lies in perverting the use of the ma- 
chinery of election. That machinery, as I shall try more 
fully to show, is, within certain limits, the best machinery 
that can be devised for the mere choosing of public ser- 
vants. But it is not the fit machinery for securing good 
service from them after they are chosen. For that pur- 



PARTY— ITS CAUSES, NATURE, AND OSES. 109 

we must have, not a machinery of re-election for fit- 

l conduct, but only of removal and punish- 
ment for unfitness and misconduct. 

What, then, is party, as we have Lad it I 

It has been generally assumed by political writers that 
parties here and in England have been combinations for 
the purpose of carrying' measures in the interest of the 
people. 

I maintain, on the contrary, that parties have never been 
combinations to carry measures; that the interests of the 
people have always been subordinated to the interests of 
the men who have been working for office; that parties 
have pressed measures only as far as party interests de- 
manded ; and that, in this country, in the large number of 
instances, the questions raised by party men have been 
questions which, so far as the true interests of the people 
at the time were concerned, should not have been raised 
at all. 

Let us examine some instances of party action, and see 
how far this is true. 

Thomas Jefferson was the head of our first opposition 
party. And no doubt he believed that an opposition party 
was then a necessary thing in our Government. Let us see 
what were the points on which Mr. Jefferson and his friends 
made up our first party contest, and consider whether the 
true interests of the people demanded unending strife or 
thorough rest on the points that this opposition party then 
raised ; whether there were any wise measures that they 
then proposed to carry ; whether this party combination 
was a combination of citizens for the purpose of carrying 
Hires of any kind. 

Let us take Mr. Jefferson's own statement of the needs 
of the people at the time. 



110 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

He writes on the 24th of April, 1796 :* 

" The aspect of our politics has wonderfully changed since you left 
us. In place of that noble love of liberty and republican govern- 
ment which carried us triumphantly through the war, an Anglican, 
monarchical, and aristocratical party has sprung up whose avowed 
object is to draw over us the substance as they have already done 
the forms of the British Government. The main body of our citizens, 
however, remain true to their republican principles. The whole land- 
ed interest is republican, and so is a great mass of talents. Against 
us are the executive power, the judiciary, two out of three branches 
of the Legislature, all the officers of the Government, all who want 
to be officers, all timid men who prefer the calm of despotism to the 
boisterous sea of liberty, British merchants and Americans trading 
on British capital, speculators and holders in the banks and public 
funds, a contrivance invented for the purposes of corruption and for 
assimilating us in all things to the rotten as well as the sound parts 
of the British model. It would give you a fever were I to name to 
you the apostates who have gone over to these heresies — men who 
were Samsons in the field and Solomons in the council, but who have 
had their heads shorn by the harlot England." 

The "Anglican, monarchical, and aristocratical party" 
was made up of the men who had risked their lives on the 
field of battle fighting an English king. They were the 
men who had created this republican government under 
which we now live. The man who had " invented " the 
" banks and public funds " " for the purposes of corruption " 
was Alexander Hamilton, who had done almost more than 
all other men to get our Constitution adopted and organ- 
ize a working machinery under it, while Thomas Jefferson 
was taking lessons in political science from the mobs of 
Paris. The " executive" who, with Hamilton and the oth- 
ers, was working to suppress freedom and republican insti- 
tutions, was George Washington. In the " great mass of 

* Jefferson's "Writings," vol. iii. p. 327. 



PARTY— ITS CAUSES, NATURE, AND Ufi lit 

talents" the men who did not "want to be officers" was, 
it is to be presumed, Thomas Jefferson, who, however he 
might write of Washington and Hamilton in his private 
letters, was yet entirely willing to hold for years, under 
one of them, and with the other, a seat in the cabinet 
by which all these nefarious schemes of corruption were 
devised. 

To such lengths did party strife and party violence go 
in those early years of party existence, that Washington 
wrote, in a letter to Jefferson himself:* 

k ' To this I may add, and very truly, that until the last year or two 
I had no conception that parties would, or ever could, go to the 
lengths I have been witness to. Nor did I believe until latterly that 
it was within the bounds of probability, hardly within those of possi- 
bility, that while I was using my utmost exertions to establish a na- 
tional character of our own, independent, as far as our obligations 
and justice would permit, of every nation on the earth, and wished, 
by steering a steady course, to preserve this country from the horrors 
of desolating war, I should be accused of being the enemy of one na- 
tion and subject to the influence of another ; and to prove it, that 
every act of my administration would be tortured, and the grossest 
and most insidious misrepresentations of them be made, by giving 
one side only of a subject, and that, too, in such exaggerated and 
indecent terms as could scarcely be applied to a Nero, to a notorious 
defaulter, or even to a common pickpocket.-' 

Twenty years before this time, Thomas Jefferson and his 
party friends, with Washington and Hamilton, had been 
straggling for the freedom of the colonies. Freedom had 
been gained. Ten years before they had all been working 
in harmony to form a government, f They had formed it. 



* Washington's " Writings," vol. xi. p. 139. 

f Jefferson himself, indeed, was not in the country at the time of 
the Constitutional Convention. 



112 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

After the Government had been formed, they had to choose 
the men who were to carry on this new government. They 
had chosen the men. 

At the end of the first twelve years under the Constitu- 
tion those men who had been carrying on the government 
were just as fit for their places as they had been when they 
were chosen. They were more so. They had in the be- 
ginning only been honest and able. They had now gained 
experience. They w r ere charged with attempting to turn 
our republican government into an English monarchy. 
The charge was not true. No man in his calm judgment 
could believe it. It was a charge which accomplished one 
purpose, that of capturing public offices. 

The Jefferson party soon developed into the party of 
what was called State Eights ; and for years this doctrine 
of State Eights was a war-cry on which one of the great 
national parties existed. It was under Mr. Jefferson's 
teachings that this doctrine of State Eights had its birth. 
At a later period it took the form of nullification, which 
was only another name for the right of a State Legislature 
to declare void an act of the national Congress. 

How sound a doctrine w T as this, and how far did the 
true interests of the people demand a contest over it ? 

It was urged by the supporters of the doctrine of nulli- 
fication that these States had been originally, and were still, 
sovereign States ; that all the powers they had not given to 
the general government by the Constitution had been by 
them retained ; that they had never, by the Constitution, 
given to the general government the power of coercing a 
State ; and that if a State should declare null and void any 
act of the national Legislature, the national executive had 
no right to enforce any such nullified law against the State 
or its citizens. 



PARTY— ITS CAUSES, NATURE, AND CFSES. 118 

It is almost hard to understand the constitutional argu- 
ment of nullification. What these implied powers reserved 
by sovereign States were, what were sovereign States, and 
whether the States composing the Union were such sover- 
eign States, were points that might, in the case of imagi- 
nable leagues, or imaginable federal governments, admit of 
doubt. l>ut as to the right of these particular States, un- 
der this particular government, established by this particu- 
lar constitution, to nullify or make void, by an act of a 
State Legislature, any act of the United States Congress — 
as to that, there never could be any doubt at all. For 
there it was, written, in the very words of the instrument 
itself, adopted by the same peoples that had created the 
State legislatures and governments (or adopted, if you 
choose, by the States themselves), that "this Constitution 
and the laws of the United States which shall be made in 
pursuance thereof * * * shall be the supreme law of the 
land, * * * anything in the Constitution or laws of any State 
to the contrary notwithstanding." There was no doubt as 
to the words or their meaning. Long argument was had as 
to whether the States or the people of the States had made 
the Constitution. That point was very immaterial. There 
was no doubt as to what the Constitution said, whoever 
might have made it. Long argument was had as to wheth- 
er the States had been or remained sovereign States. It 
made no difference. There was the paper; and the States 
or the people composing them had assented to that paper. 
Long argument was had as to whether there was an im- 
plied right of nullification. The right was taken away by 
express words. Finally, it was urged that this Constitution 
was only a compact between separate and sovereign States. 
I>ut in the case of a mere compact, has either party, as a 
matter of law, a right to break it ? Even if this were only 



114 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

a compact, what were the words of the compact ? They 
plainly were, that a certain body, called a Congress, should 
have the power of making laws, which should be binding 
on all men, in all the States. And has it ever been claim- 
ed that, even in the case of a mere compact, the compact 
can rightfully or lawfully be broken or abrogated by only 
one party? When you come to the right of revolution 
against tyranny, that is another question. But these mat- 
ters were always discussed as matters of law, under the 
Constitution of the United States.* 

In the case of a government imposed by force upon a 
people against its will, most men do not question the right 
of that people to forcibly resist arbitrary and oppressive 
acts. But here was the case of a government made by 
the people of these States themselves, a Constitution assent- 
ed to by them, which provided peaceable and lawful means 
for its own modification, and even for ending its existence. 
The Legislatures of three-fourths of the States could, by 
the terms of the Constitution itself, amend it in any way, 

* Luther Martin, in the Constitutional Convention, proposed to add 
in the third section of the third article, after the clause which defines 
treason against the United States, the following : " Provided, that no 
act or acts done by one or more of the States against the United 
States, or by any citizen of any one of the United States under the 
authority of one or more of the said States, shall be deemed trea- 
son, or punished as such ; but in case of war being levied by one or 
more of the States against the United States, the conduct of each 
party toward the other, and their adherents respectively, shall be reg- 
ulated by the laws of war and of nations." But this provision was 
not adopted. Luther Martin's letter to the Speaker of the House of 
Delegates of Maryland. Elliot's Debates, vol. i. p. 382. 

There would seem to have been no doubt in the minds of the 
framers of the Constitution as to what constituted the offence of 
treason. 



PARTY-ITS CAUSES, NATURE, AND OSES. n:, 

•'"'-' of course they could amend it in such a way as to 
provide for the release of any one, or more, or all of the 
States i'rom its obligations. In other words, the Constitu- 
tion itself provided the means by which there might be 
such a thing as peaceable secession. And can it be argued 
that there could be, in law, under the Constitution, such a 
thing as forcible secession i 

J int. it was said, here are, or .nay be, unconstitutional 
laws. Grant it. What bad a State Legislature to do with 
the matter 1 Clearly, if a Jaw passed by Congress was con- 
stitutional, the State Legislature had no right to speak; 
and if the law was unconstitutional, the State Legislature 
bad no need to speak ; and in either case it had no call to 
speak ; for the courts, both State and national, would de- 
clare that law unconstitutional, and therefore void, when- 
ever an attempt was made to enforce it. Even under any 
State Constitution, where did the State Legislature ever 
get judicial authority, to pass on the constitutionality of 
any law, cither State or national ? State courts had such 
a right, in the first instance ; but what had a State Legis- 
lature to do with it, which was only a creature of a consti- 
tution, and whose only power given by that constitution 
was to make certain laws \ 

This doctrine of nullification was not merely a claim 
that unconstitutional laws passed by Congress should not 
be enforced. As to that, all men agreed.' It was a claim 
that a State Legislature could pass on the constitutionality 
of those laws, and could lawfully organize armed rebellion. 
W here did they ever get any such power as that ? Under 
what State law or State Constitution, or divine dispensation i 
It was said that the national government had no right 
to coerce a State. That point did not go far enough. The 
true point was, that a State government had no right to 



116 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

be coerced — it Lad no right to put itself in a position of 
resistance. There was no doubt that the national govern- 
ment had a right to enforce its laws on individuals ; and 
the State government had no right to speak in the matter, 
on the one side or the other. 

This whole doctrine of nullification, which subsequently 
grew into rebellion, would never have been heard of, had 
it not been for the existence of parties and the needs of 
party contests. The whole question was one which never 
should have been raised. It was not a practical question. 
If Congress should at any time pass laws beyond its pow- 
ers, under which some individual citizen should be illegally 
deprived of liberty or property, he had his remedies in the 
courts, and those remedies had always been equal to all 
needs. The courts had often declared statutes, both of 
Congress and of the State Legislatures, to be unconstitu- 
tional, and therefore void. There was no difficulty in that. 
And if it should ever come that there should be a grand 
overwhelming combination of Congressmen, President, and 
judges, striving to make and enforce unconstitutional laws, 
then, indeed, it might be time to think of armed revolution, 
after all peaceful remedies under the law should have been 
tried, and had failed. This was all that lawful citizens, who 
wished only their rights, ever could or ever did ask. But 
for the purpose of carrying elections that was not enough. 
There being at the time no other " issue," as it is called, 
on which people could be excited, there being no practical 
question on which there was any real division of existing 
interests, this doctrine of State Rights was conjured into 
being, made a war-cry, and on it was developed a great 
party combination, which was in after years the nucleus 
for resistance to any and all unpopular measures of the 
national government. 



PARTY— ITS CAUSES, NATURE, AND USES. 117 

When Mr. Jefferson and his friends first raised the cry 
that Washington and Hamilton wished a monarchy, that 

was a cry which should not have been raised. Even if still 
there were in the country some men who wished a mon- 
archy, such a wish was nothing hut an idle dream. That 
point was decided — was a thing of the past — and there it 
should have been left. There was then a great work be- 
fore all men, in which all men were bound to join — that 
of rebuilding the people's fortunes under the new govern- 
ment which we had. How did it matter what form of gov- 
ernment a few individuals had wished twenty years before? 

But though the issue as to whether we should have a 
monarchy was dead and gone, the feelings which the con- 
test over that issue had roused were still living, and could 
be played on by party men, for their own ends, and against 
the people's interests. 

So, too, in 1830, although there was then no one meas- 
ure of Congress which the country would agree in dislik- 
ing, and though it was impossible to organize any serious 
opposition to any one national law, yet it was very easy to 
rouse the fears of many men that at some time national 
laws might be passed which would be unconstitutional, 
and which some of them might wish to resist. And by 
playing on those fears, it was easy to organize the party 
.of what was called State Rights, which meant simply State 
rebellion. What reason was there for this strife ? We 
can now look back on it calmly. Did the true interests 
of the people of the United States demand it ? This Con- 
stitution we had. It might some time become necessary 
to change it. If so, then we could change it, by peaceful 
means under the law. It might possibly become neces- 
sary to do away with it altogether. If so, then we conld 
in convention, and do away with it altogether, by 



118 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

peaceful means under the law, as we had made it. Mean- 
time we had to Jive under it and obey it. And that was 
all that the people needed to think of. But that w^as not 
enough for party men who were struggling for office. 

At the end of our first fifty years under the Constitu- 
tion we had, indeed, a government, and great material pros- 
perity under it. For all ordinary affairs of peace, the ma- 
chinery of the national Government had proved itself suffi- 
cient. As matter of law and mere argument, too, it had 
been very well settled, in the minds of the large majority 
of thinking men, that the laws of this Government were 
not to be swept aside at the will of any one State or num- 
ber of States ; but that all the citizens of all the States 
were really bound to obey these national laws, whether they 
willed it or no, so long as they were laws, was not a fact 
that had been drilled into the convictions of the people. 
If rebellion was thought of at all, it was thought of as a 
thing to be reasoned with and persuaded, not to be crushed. 
De Tocqueville, in 1833, wrote: " Experience has hitherto 
shown that whenever a State has demanded anything with 
perseverance and resolution, it has invariably succeeded ; 
and that, if it has distinctly refused to act, it was left to 
do as it thought fit." And he said further : " If the sov- 
ereignty of the Union were to engage in a struggle with 
that of the States at the present day, its defeat may be 
confidently predicted ; and it is not probable that such a 
struggle would be seriously undertaken." And that doubt- 
less was the opinion of most men who then chose to think 
on the point. 

That the Government was not then a strong govern- 
ment, and that its laws did not then in all cases command 
instant and thorough obedience, was due to parties and 
party contest. 



PARTY— ITS CAUSES, NATURE, AND USES. 119 

Later still, in I860 and 1861, suppose there bad not 
been two great parties engaged in a ureat contest for the 
offices of the Government, striving (honestly, perhaps) to 
inflame the people's feelings, instead of urging them to 
s»>me wise practical measures of policy, who can say that 
we should have had the war of the rebellion? Concede 
that slavery was a great wrong to the slave and a great 
injury to the master. What was the wise thing for all 
parties, to have strife and war, or to find some wise meas- 
ure which would solve the difficulty in the best interests 
<>f all men 1 

Perhaps that was a thing which could not have been ac- 
complished. But it was precisely what the party men, in 
either party, neither tried nor wished. They did not de- 
vise measures in the interest of the people. They were 
working for victory at the polls over their opponents. 

And since the war of the rebellion ended, what has 
been the course of our two political parties? Has either 
party proposed one practical measure for solving the polit- 
ical problems we had to solve? 

Let me quote, as to the policy of the general govern- 
ment, in what has been called the reconstruction of the 
South, the words of a distinguished divine, who is a mem- 
ber of the Republican party. Dr. Leonard Bacon, in a let- 
ter to the New York Tribune, dated 12th December, 1876, 
writes as follows : 

u .More than eleven years have passed since the armies of the civil 
war were disbanded, and the work of reconstructing the States re- 
covered from the enemies of the United States was begun. Nothing 
in our political outlook to-day is more manifest than that the recon- 
struction attempted in the negro States has been a failure. * * * 
The blunder in reconstruction was not that which the Democratic 
would have made — universal suffrage for white men, and no 
suffrage at all for black men; it was the more excusable blunder of 



120 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

universal suffrage without distinction of race or color — universal suf- 
frage instead of intelligent suffrage. * * * One word— party — sums 
up the reasons w T hy nothing of this kind was done in reconstruction. 
The Democratic party in Congress at that time was not very numer- 
ous ; but I will venture to say that had there been among its leaders 
a few men, ever so few, with mind and soul enough to ask how those 
disorganized populations might be made to pass from under military 
government to a condition of peaceful order and prosperity under 
republican forms of government ; had there been only two or three 
Senators, and as many Representatives, willing to rise, at such a junc- 
ture, out of politics into statesmanship, out of party into patriotism, 
the result might have been far different from what it is now. Had 
they said, ' This work of reconstruction is above all party interests, 
and therefore we are ready to consult and co-operate heartily with 
all who will unite with us in giving to those recovered States the best 
practical government at the earliest practicable day ;' had they said, 
* The abolition of slavery is a completed fact, the freedmen of each 
State are to be incorporated into the commonwealth, and no man's 
color or race is to exclude him from any civil or political right ; but 
government in those States cannot safely rest on the suffrages of ig- 
norant millions just coming up out of slavery or of any other class 
as ignorant as they' — such an appeal, I am sure, would not have been 
in vain. It would have taken effect in Congress. It would have 
had an effect on the nation. The power of extreme and hot-headed 
men to lead or drive the Republican party would have been broken, 
and common-sense would have asserted itself. But at the decisive 
moment, Democratic Senators and Representatives were thinking not 
so much how to establish the best practical system in the recovered 
States as how to embarrass the Republican party." 

That is all very admirable, all very true. But suppose, 
on the other hand, that the leaders of the Republican par- 
ty had been men "willing to rise out of politics into states- 
manship, out of party into patriotism," was there any stat- 
ute to forbid it, and would there have been any evil con- 
stitutional results ? More than that, which party was pe- 
culiarly called on to take measures which were truly for 
the public weal, the party which was in power, or the par- 



r.vi; . NATURE, AND OSES. 121 

tv which was no1 ! So it has been ever since party ma- 
chinery became fully developed The one thought with 
party men, on either side, at all times, however good may 
have been their general intentions, has been, not what will 
the interests of the people, but what will best 
the interests of party. Such is the legitimate ten- 
dency of the system, and it has worked out its tendencies 
with wonderful SUCCCSS. 

Take the proceedings of our national Legislature during 

the present administration. The party men on boili sides 
made it their chief work to search the past history 
of their opponents (bad enough it is for either), for the 
mere purpose of finding material to use for the next po- 
litical campaign, as it is called. Here have been impor- 
tant questions of revenue and currency waitii/g for action. 
And our legislators do nothing. Many men think the 
matter of civil service reform is, in legislation, the one 
thing most important to the country. Upon that ques- 
tion the party men on both sides are agreed, to say all 
they can, and to do only what they must.. On every point 
where the country needs action, the party men avoid ac- 
tion. If they should act, they think they might lose 
s. Everything that they do or say, everything that 
they leave undone and unsaid, has one purpose, the carry- 
ing the next election. 

These are only single illustrations taken from our politi- 
cal history. They might be multiplied and extended. 

doubt our political parties have in many instances 
taken sides on questions of real interest and importance to 
the people. And party men have, no doubt, often been 
the means of giving us good legislation and good admin- 
istration. I do not mean that party men have never done 
. or that their conscious purposes have 




122 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

always or often corrupt. But the good work that has 
been done has not been the work of party, but has gener- 
ally been done in spite of party and of party influences. 

It may be said, however, that this may be the nature of 
party combinations here, under a republican government, 
with universal suffrage, but that it has not been so in Eng- 
land ; that there, at least, party and party rule have been 
the only means of gaining freedom and good government. 

But let us examine this ; and let us begin the exami- 
nation with the very first manifestation, as far as I am 
aware, of true party machinery in English history. 

Macaulay's account of the state of affairs at the general 
election of 1698 is a precise counterpart of the party op- 
position made by the Anti- Federalists, in the first years of 
our government, to the men and measures of Washington's 
administration. In England the policy of the Whig min- 
istry had been most wise, and had brought the most won- 
derful prosperity to the nation. And the Parliament then 
in existence, the Parliament of 1695, was a parliament of 
the best men in the country, called into the people's ser- 
vice, as were our own rulers immediately after the Revolu- 
tionary War, by the most pressing needs of the nation. 
Macaulay says :* 

" That election [of 1695] had taken place at a time when peril and 
distress had called forth all the best qualities of the nation. The 
hearts of men were in the struggle for independence, for liberty, and 
for the Protestant religion. * * * The majority, therefore, readily 
arranged itself in admirable order under the ministers, and during 
three sessions gave them, on almost every occasion, a cordial support. 
The consequence was that the country was rescued from its danger- 
ous position, and when that Parliament had lived out its three years, 
enjoyed prosperity after a terrible commercial crisis, peace after a 

* Macaulay's " History," chap. 24. 



PARTY— ITS CAUSES, NATURE, AND I 123 

ind Banguinary war, and liberty, united with order, after civil 

troubles which had lasted during two generations, and in which 
Bometimes order and sometimes Liberty had been in danger of per- 
ishing. * * * Such were the fruits of the general election of 1695. 
The ministers had flattered themselves that the genera] election of 

would be equally favorable to union, and that in the new Par- 
liament the old Parliament would revive. Nor is it Strange that they 
should have indulged such a hope. Since they had been called to 
the direction of affairs, everything had been changed — changed for 
the better, and changed chiefly by their wis* and retoLuU policy, and by 
the firmness with which their party had stood by them. * * * The 
statesmen whose administration had been so beneficent might be 
pardoned if they expected the gratitude and confidence they had fair- 
ly earned. But it soon became clear that they had served their coun- 
try only too well for their own interest. In 1G9S prosperity and se- 
curity had made men querulous, fastidious, and unmanageable. The 
Government was assailed with equal violence from widely different 
quarters. The opposition, made up of Tories, many of whom carried 
Toryism to the length of Jacobitism, and of dlseontentcd Whigs, some 
of whom carried Whiggism to the length of republicanism, called it- 
self the Country party, a name which had been popular before the 
words Tory and Whig were known in England. The majority of the 
of Commons — a majority which had saved the State — was nick- 
named the Court party. The Tory gentry, who were powerful in all 
the counties, had special grievances. The whol patronagi ofih 

'hi Whig hands, * * * There were three war- 
in which all the enemies of the Government, from Trenchard to 
Seymour, could join — 'Xo standing army;' ■ Xo grants of Crown prop- 
erty; 1 and *X>> Dutchmen? " 

The king- who had saved the English nation was a 
Dutchman ; some of his advisers, who had been most 
trusted by himself and by the nation, were Dutchmen. 
Some of the troops who had done most valiant service to 
the English people were Dutchmen. And if one thing at 
the time was certain, it was that England could not be safe 
without a standing army. 

hi the first years of our national Government Washing- 



124 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

ton and Hamilton, and the men who had helped to carry 
out their policy, made the nation. Such a thing as an 
English monarchy in this country, after the establishment 
of the Constitution, was a thing that neither Hamilton nor 
Washington nor any of their political friends ever dreamed 
of. And the men then in charge of our public affairs 
were deposed from the management of the Government, 
under a cry that they were endeavoring to befriend Eng- 
land, and set up here an English monarchy. 

In England in 1698, and in America in 1800, party 
men, on mere party cries, drew into one combination all 
the enemies of the men who were then in office, all the 
elements of discontent in the country, and drove wise 
men from the councils of the nation, for the purpose of 
getting place for themselves. 

We have seen that, in this country, party feeling and 
the necessities of party contests urged a President of the 
United States to the length of inciting rebellion against 
his own government. In the English House of Commons, 
party needs urged men to the length of supporting treason. 
Hallam says of the case of Admiral Eussell :* 

" The credulity and almost wilful blindness of faction is strongly 
manifested in the conduct of the House of Commons as to the quar- 
rel between this commander and the head of the Admiralty. They 
chose to support one who was secretly a traitor, because he bore the 
name of Whiff, tolerating his infamous neglect of duty and contemp- 
tible excuses, in order to pull down an honest though not very able 
minister who belonged to the Tories." 

It remained for English statesmen in 1832, at the last 
great struggle for freedom in English history, in the con- 
test over the first Eeform Bill, to give one of the most 

* Hallam, "Const. Hist," vol. iii. p. 126. 



PARTY— ITS CAUSES, NATURE, AND USES. 125 

remarkable instances of the true working of party ma- 
chinery. 

The Duke of Wellington, with the other leaders of the 
Conservative party, were making the attempt to "form a 
government." The House of Commons was determined 
to have Parliamentary Reform. And no government could 
stand which did not bring in a Reform Bill. The Con- 
servatives had been steadily fighting, with all their strength, 
against reform. The Liberals had been steadily fighting 
for reform. Doth parties, it is to be presumed, believed 
in the principles they professed. The Liberals professed 
to believe that the passage of a Reform Bill would be 
the saving of the nation. The Conservatives professed 
to believe that the passage of a Reform Bill would be the 
nation's ruin. What the two parties did was this : The 
Conservative leaders proposed to take office and pass a 
Reform Bill. The Liberal leaders refused to allow the 
Reform Bill to pass unless they could take office them- 
selves. Both parties were ready to throw away their 
principles to get place. 

That is merely one instance. So it has always been in 
English Parliamentary history. Each party has been, at 
one time or another, on both sides of every important 
question of government policy. Principles and measures 
have had little to do with the action of parties in Eng- 
land, except that there, as here, the party leaders have used 
the great questions of the day as battle-cries in the strug- 
gle for place. Many great men and honest men in Eng- 
land have been party men. They have, too, done great 
service to the English people. But they have done that 
good service always in spite of party and party influences. 

Within the last three years it has seemed that the Eng- 
lish people were almost at the turning-point of their fort- 



126 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

unes. As it seemed for a time, they were on the eve of 
a great war with a powerful nation for dominion in the 
East, and we were about to witness either the downfall, 
or a new and extended growth, of the Anglo-Indian Em- 
pire. Was England brought to the position in which she 
was a few months since by the temperate counsels of wise 
statesmen? How did it happen that on this great ques- 
tion of a great war, which could not but bring misery to 
many individuals, and might possibly bring disaster for 
years on the mass of the English people, the expressed 
opinion of all public men followed almost exactly the 
party lines? Is it a possible thing that no one of the 
Liberal party men was in favor of a war with Russia, and 
that no one of the Conservatives was opposed to it ? 
That, in the nature of things, could not be. But such is 
the effect of party contest and party feeling, that with this 
question before them, of life and death to the nation, the 
men of one party did all they could to plunge the nation 
into a war, while the men of the other party did all they 
could to keep the nation out of a war, and the English 
people had the calm, deliberate thought and action of 
neither party. " Politics "may consist in the mere con- 
test of party men for power and place. That is not, how- 
ever, statesmanship. 

But is this the only point to be noticed ? We have in 
this country developed not only parties, but enormous 
party machinery for the mere purpose of carrying elec- 
tions — a machinery that is intricate, costly, powerful, and 
tyrannical. The man in public place in these days in this 
country must be, not a statesman, but a man of skill and 
capacity in manipulating this election machinery. And 
how is it in England ? 

In the Fortnightly Revieiv for July, 1 877, is an article 



PARTY— ITS CAUSES, NATURE, AM) USES. 12* 

written by Mr. Chamberlain, of the Bouse of Commons, 
entitled " A Now Political Organization." It gives an a<> 
coant of one of the most significant ami important move- 
ments in English history. There lias been now for some 
lime a " Liberal Association," for the purpose of regulat- 

andidates and measures for the Liberal party in the 
city of Birmingham. That one organization has, accord- 
ing to Mr. Chamberlain, brought about this result. " It 
given them (the Liberals) the control of the represen- 
tatives of the local government of the town." It is now 
proposed to form a similar organization extending over 
the whole nation. Mr. Chamberlain explains that the 
managing committees in the Birmingham association "are 
elected by public meetings generally called in each ward, 
and open to every Liberal resident." There is to be a 
similar organization in every parliamentary constituency, 
and there is to be a national council, composed of repre- 
sentatives from all the local councils and associations. 
This national council is to regulate, directly or indirectly, 
and to a greater or less extent, the policy of the Liberal 
party in England. Some of Mr. Chamberlain's sentences 
are very pertinent and very interesting. He says : " Owing 
to various causes, and notably to the extension of the suf- 

. and to the increased interest taken by the mass of 
the people in general politics, it is not only desirable, but 
absolutely necessary, that the whole of the party should 
be taken into its counsels, and that all its members should 
share in its control and management. It is no longer safe 
to attempt to secure the representation of a great constit- 

. for the nominee of a few gentlemen sitting in pri- 
vate committee, and basing their claims to dictate the 
choice of the election on the fact that they have been will- 
ing to subscribe something toward the expenses. The 



123 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

working class, who cannot contribute pecuniarily, though 
they are often ready to sacrifice a more than proportion- 
ate amount of time and labor, are now the majority in 
most borough constituencies, and no candidate and no 
policy has a chance of success unless their good-will and 
active support can be first secured." 

In other words, according to Mr. Chamberlain, a national 
society is now to be formed, for the purpose, nominally, of 
guiding the policy of the English Liberal party. It needs 
no great shrewdness to see that this organization will be 
used for nominating candidates for Parliament and all 
local elective offices, and that the men who control this 
organization will control the action of the Liberal party 
throughout the kingdom. This party organization on the 
part of the Liberals will compel the formation of a like or- 
ganization on the part of the Conservatives. The English 
people, in short, unless appearances are very deceptive, are 
soon to have inaugurated, in its most approved form, that 
grand political panacea, the caucus system. Some English- 
men believe that by the Reform acts they have at last se- 
cured the thing for which they have been struggling for 
centuries, for which so many noble lives have been lost, 
and so much noble toil has been given — a free representa- 
tive government. They have as yet secured nothing of 
the kind. They have secured a government, by party pol- 
iticians, through the machinery of frequent popular elec- 
tions. And they are just entering on that blessed era in 
the progress toward free government, the era of party 
tyranny. 

Mr. Gold win Smith writes, in an article in Macmillan\s 
Magazine for August, 1877: 

" The tendency in party government to supersede the national Legislat- 
ure by the party caucus has long been completely developed in the United 



PARTY— ITS CAUSES, NATURE, AND r 129 

1 that in ordinary times the only real de- 
are those held in caucus, Congressional legislation being .-imply 
istration of the caucus decision, for which all the members of 

the party, whether tin 1 in the caucus, feel bound 

by party allegiance to record their votes in the House — just as the 

ucus <>/ th > party which has 
, and which then collectively imposes its will OO the con- 
stituency; so that measures ami elections may lie, ami often a; 

a minority but little exceeding one-fourth of the House or the 
i he case may be. Tl<> same tendency is rapidly <l- 
,<<!, and it is evidently fatal to the existence of 
parliamentary institution 

When we study political institutions, our effort is to 
learn, not only how affairs arc now from past causes, but 
affairs are to be from causes now existing*. English 
public affairs are now in only a transition state. The cal- 
dron is still seething-. The English people have not yet 
finished their revolution. The men who think they ad- 
mire party rule in England, admire a state of things which 
is now disappearing, and which lias resulted from causes 
which have already disappeared. But what a change there 
lias been even now ! Here is a great people, which has 
had statesmen in its service — Burke and Pitt and Fox, 
1 and Gladstone. By what strange freak of 
fortune does it chance that the management of their gov- 
ernment affairs has fallen into the hands of a somewhat 
clever writer of tawdry romances ? Eor the one reason 
that he is a shrewd manipulator of party machinery. Xo 
one ever thought him a statesman. But that is the man 
that party rule naturally and certainly puts in high place, 
where he has to deal with such a man as Bismarck. 
Doubtless it is highly pleasing to the German Chancellor. 
Bat is it greatly fur the best interests of the English 
people ] 



130 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

So far we Lave an examination of the facts of history. 
Bnt how must those facts necessarily be, from the nature 
of things ? 

It is said that parties are combinations of citizens for 
the purpose of carrying measures. I maintain, on the con- 
trary, that these combinations, which we call parties, never 
can be anything but combinations of office-holders, to carry 
elections. 

The citizens who compose these political parties do not, 
and cannot, themselves frame and decide the actual meas- 
ures of public policy. They can and do only elect the 
men who are to frame and decide those measures. Tak- 
ing the theory at its best, then, the first thing, in point of 
time, to be done by these political parties, is to elect men 
to public office. 

And with the men who manage these parties, however 
upright may be their intentions, the end which is first, in 
point of time, is to get office for themselves ; to this end 
they must have the support of other party men ; to this 
end they must give their support to other party men. The 
party organization naturally and certainly becomes an or- 
ganization of men who combine and work together to se- 
cure their own election to the different places under gov- 
ernment. It becomes, try to disguise it as we may, a sys- 
tem of trading in office. 

In the affairs, too, of any great nation, or even of a sin- 
gle city, there are, not one or two, but very many, weighty 
questions of public policy. As a matter of fact, the men 
composing these large parties cannot all agree on more 
than one or two of those main questions. Nor do they 
profess to. And as to those one or two main questions, 
they agree, not on actual measures to be carried, but only 
on what they are pleased to term general principles. 



PARTY— ITS CAUSES, NATURE, AND OSES. L3J 

There 19, however, one point on which tin 4 parly leaders 
ran agree — their candidates for office. And here they do 

On all other points they must differ, and they do 

differ. They do indeed, before each election, say some- 
thing about " principles ;" they make a" platform," as they 
term it — a collection of "sounding and glittering general- 
ities," bo vague as to mean nothing, by which they think 
they can catch votes. This word "platform*' truly de- 
scribes the thing for which it is the name. It is some- 
thing to be put under foot. 

Whatever may be the theory of political parties as they 
should be, wherever there arc many offices and many elec- 
tions, the natural and certain result is that these party or- 
ganizations, as a fact, are used for the purpose of carrying- 
elections and not measures. Parties do not elect men to 
put into action certain principles; they use principles as 
battle-cries to elect certain men. 

That is not only the working of party rule, it is the the- 
ory of party rule as it actually exists. Any other state- 
ment is only the theory of party rule as men wish it 
might be. 

What, then, are the uses of party i 

It is often said that in a free government we must have 
parties, that they are necessary, in order — 

1. To get concerted action. 

2. To keep alive the interest of the people in public af- 
fairs, and thus 

3. To preserve free government. 
How far is this true \ 

And, first, must we have these vast party combinations 
for the purpose of getting concerted action ? 

For the purpose of accomplishing results, in govern- 
ment affairs as well as in private affairs, we must have. 



132 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

there is no doubt, combination. But do we need, in or- 
der to get combination, permanent party organizations, such 
as we have had ? Combinations of men, for the purpose 
only of carrying measures, always must and always will 
exist. No system of government can possibly be devised 
which will prevent it. If men have interests that need to 
be protected, they will combine to protect those interests. 
If at any time there is any one great controlling interest 
as to which wise legislation or executive action is needed, 
is it a possible thing that men will not combine and work 
together, to get that legislation or action, as they always 
combine m all private affairs, as they always have done in 
public affairs ? 

It is said we must have combination. We cannot hin- 
der it, do what we will. 

Let us go a step farther. It may be that, so far from 
parties being necessary to get concerted action, they are 
even a great hindrance in getting it. 

We have seen so much of parties and party contests 
that we have almost come to look on them as an end in 
themselves. But what is always the real end to be reached 
in public affairs ? As we should all agree, it is action of 
some kind. In order to have that action wise, we need 
calm thought and discussion before we decide what that 
action shall be, and united effort after our action is de- 
cided. We need at every stage, not strife between two 
factions, but harmony of all men. We must have the work- 
ing together, of all men's minds, to get the wisest thought, 
of all men's wills, to get the strongest action. 

This working together, this harmony, of thought and ac- 
tion, we need, too, from our public officers even more, if pos- 
sible, than from the people themselves ; for it is the public 
officers who are to decide on the actual government measures. 



PARTY— ITS CAUSES, NATURE, AND QSES. 133 

And how does this machinery of party tend to help or 
hinder as in getting these results, wise thought and strong 

action, from both the people and their public servants' 

Parties and party contests make it an impossible thing 
t from the people their calm wise thought and action. 

One party seizes one side of a question, the other party 
takes the other side, or, oftencr, each party takes differ- 
ent sides in different sections of the country. What the 
party men labor for is not to find out the best thing to be 

done by the men of all parties, but to catch votes for their 
own party. And their wliole effort is to make men follow 
party and work for party success, instead of using their 
minds and their judgments. In party contests men do not 
think over measures ; they fight for candidates. We have 
always strife, not deliberation. 

So it is as to the action and thought of the people them- 
selves. But how is it as to the action of our public ser- 
vants ? It is our right to have our Senators and Repre- 
sentatives sit down together and give us the best possible 
results of their combined wisdom. When once they enter 
our legislative halls they have no right to know that there 
is such a thing as party in existence. They are bound to 
think only what are the best measures for the people's 
interest, and to give us those measures. That is not what 
they do. Every measure is made a "party question." If 
the administration party, as it is called, brings forward a 
wise measure, the opposition party, if it dare, opposes it, 
for fear their enemies may gam votes through having done 
the people good service. These party men may be able 
men ; they may be men of honest intentions. They are 
driven by the pressure of this vast party machinery to 
serve party and not the people, whether they wish it or 
n<>t ; for on party they depend for their future. 



134 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

So much as to whether party and party machinery 
helps or hinders us in getting from the people and their 
servants wise action. But when measures are once de- 
cided and taken, surely no one can claim that party strife 
as to those measures should go on unceasingly. But it 
never ends. No question is ever at rest. 

In private affairs, when men have once made a decision, 
they act. The decision may or may not be wise. Of that 
they cannot be certain. But when the decision is once 
made, they do something — they put their decision to a 
trial ; and if, upon trial, they find they have made a mis- 
take, then they try something else. In public affairs we 
should do the same. When a course of action is once de- 
termined on, then all men should agree, in putting it to the 
test of experience. If the course of action is not wise, 
time will so prove ; and then we can try other measures. 
And so we should do, were it not for party. 

It is now fourteen years since we ended the war of the 
rebellion. "When that war ended we had before us, no 
doubt, a great work. It may be that no one then under- 
stood precisely how that work was to be done. Time 
would certainly have shown us the way, if party strife had 
not always kept the people blind. We can now, at least, 
easily see that this work, though great, was simple. We 
had only to keep the peace, and let the laws of nature 
work out their own results. The war had been begun and 
carried on by the people of the North with one purpose, 
to enforce obedience to United States laws. That was all 
that war could do for us, if our success was most complete. 
When the war was ended, we had to re-establish the ex- 
ecutive machinery of the United States Government and 
the United States Courts in the Southern States. And 
we had to keep an army there to enforce United States 



PARTY— ITS CAUSES, NATURE, AM) [JSES. 185 

laws — an army of one hundred thousand men, or five hun- 
dred thousand men, if need was. That army should, from 
the beginning, have been large enough not merely to crush 

nice, but to make the thought of resistance impossi- 
ble. That would have boon economy in the end. It was 

truly for the interest of the Southern people. Then, 
if it was necessary to have new United States laws to so- 
euro to any one class or all classes of men the enjoyment 
of their rights, Congress could pass the laws, and the laws 
eon Id be enforced. There were some things that could 
not be done by acts of Congress or by army orders. 
Time was needed to heal the wounds of a great revolution 
and a great war. The Southern people had been ruined. 
Their property was gone. They needed to work, and they 
wished to work. And the one great service we could 
have done them was simply to keep the peace between 
them and their former slaves by the mere presence of an 
overwhelming armed force, so that affairs conld in the 
shortest possible time settle into peaceful channels. The 
party politicians, who have talked so much about the 
rights of the black man, have, most of them, cared noth- 
ing for those rights. What they wished and accomplish- 
ed has been to keep up strife between two races and to 
protect neither. The interests of the Southern people 
and of the Northern people were precisely the same, to 
have peace and quiet. There are lawless men everywhere. 
There were lawless men in the Southern States. But the 
vast majority of the white people there wished to keep 
the peace. The party men on both sides have, conscious- 
ly or unconsciously, done everything in their power to 
continue the strife that should have ended when the 
Southern armies surrendered. If at the end of the Avar a 
committee could have been appointed of fifty intelligent 



133 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

men from the South, of the men who had been in the field 
while the war lasted, and the same number of the same 
class of men from the North, and if to that committee 
could have been given the absolute power to arrange mat- 
ters as they thought wise, it is my belief that all the diffi- 
culties of the situation would have been easily surmount- 
ed. Our w r hole troubles have come from this never-end- 
ing party strife. 

And not only do party men foster strife when we need 
harmony, but in this strife they know no law or limit. 
They push it as far as their wishes and courage go — even 
to the length of armed rebellion. It was so when the first 
opposition party was formed in the time of Washington. 
It was so when Mr. Buchanan and his friends encouraged 
resistance to the Government. It will always be so as long 
as parties exist. 

But it is in time of war, when a people should be unit- 
ed, when they must show an unbroken front to their ene- 
mies, that the greatest evils from party have ever come. 
In every time of danger that the people of the United 
States have yet had, party has nearly ruined us. Party 
men, whatever may have been their intentions, have in 
practice not heeded the needs of the people, have looked 
at party ends, have brought war on us when it suited their 
purposes, and, when war has come, have done much to 
bring on us defeat and destruction. 

In the only two important wars that we have had, the 
war of 1812 and the war of the rebellion, when all men 
should have united against the common enemy, we have 
been nearly ruined by party strife. 

The calm opinion of to-day is that the war of 1812 
was entirely needless, that it was begun on no sufficient 
reason, that it was carried on with disgraceful inefficiency, 



PARTY— ITS CAUSES, NATURE, AND l si:s. i:;v 

and that it brought no substantial results. That the war 
ever came, or that it was carried <>n as it was, was due to 
the violence of parly contest One party dragged us into 

the war for party reasons. The other party, after war had 
come, did its utmost to cripple the administration and 
make the war a ruinous failure, for party reasons. 

I take from letters of Jeremiah Mason,* written during 
the war, certain extracts, pictures of the state of affairs as 
he then saw them. He says : 

11 Washington, July 20th, 1813. 
"To me most things here are new, and not a few appear strange. 
I expected to find some dissatisfaction among the old friends of the 
administration. But I was not prepared to expect the violent jeal- 
ousies among them which I find. They have no confidence in each 
other. * * * The Secretary of State and of War are each some 
distance down the river, at the head of separate bodies of troops, 
preparing to oppose the enemy. They are both ambitious of military 
command, and envious of each other. The influence of the President 
is much less than I supposed. There seems to be little plan or con- 
cert in the management of public affairs." 

"Washington, October 8th, 1814 
" The Government is in utter confusion and distress. Without a 
cabinet, without credit or money, the nation is in a most deplorable 
condition." 

"Washington, November 24th, 1S14. 
"If the war goes on, the States will be left in a great degree to 
take care of themselves. What this will end in it is impossible to 
foresee. This is the cause from which, in my opinion, a dissolution 
of the Union is to be apprehended. * * * If the people discover 
the general government is unable or unwilling to defend them, they 
will soon withdraw all support from it, and look for relief to their 
State governments. If compelled to tax themselves to support their 
militia and State troops, they will not at the same time pay heavy 
taxes to the United States." 

* Hillard's "Life of Mason" (privately printed). 



138 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

Mr. Mason Lad a clear idea of the danger of the nation 
and its cause. He writes in another letter : 

11 Our political institutions are new, and not very well understood 
by the people. Our government is weak, and has been for the last 
thirteen years carried on by courting their prejudices and worst pas- 
sions. I am not certain that our people are so much more enlighten- 
ed and virtuous than the rest of mankind, as their demagogues are 
constantly telling them. We are not without ambitious spirits ready 
to take advantage of occasions. I do not, however, believe there is 
any immediate danger of the establishment of an arbitrary govern- 
ment by usurpation. I think the country is not yet prepared for it, 
but I fear it is preparing. I do not see much chance of the govern- 
ment's getting into better hands. Should that happen, no men in 
the nation could raise it from its present degraded condition up to 
the tone and style of Washington. 

" The government must probably for many years remain in this 
degraded state, vibrating between life and death. The administra- 
tion may often pass from one faction to another. Each faction, with 
intent of securing the continuance of their power, will gratify the worst 
prejudices of the people, and pursue measures they know to be base and 
unworthy. Such a course would probably soon end in confusion, out 
of which might arise a new order of things, were it not that the 
State governments will be able, as is hoped, to afford a tolerable de- 
gree of security for individual rights." 

The war of the rebellion came. As to whether it would 
have come had it not been for party strife, men may dif- 
fer. But after the war once came, as to the disastrous ef- 
fects of party strife men cannot differ. 

Again, as in the war of 1812, when the nation was in 
the greatest danger, when we needed, of all things, that all 
loyal men should sink their differences of opinion on other 
matters, and fight together for mere existence, we had nearly 
half the men at the North arrayed in opposition to the Gov- 
ernment, doing all they could, whatever may have been their 
purpose, to aid the public enemy and destroy the nation. 

In short, at all times, in war and peace, the need of the 



PARTY— ITS CAUSES, NATURE, AND QSES. L89 

people is agreement — on Bomethingto be done. The need 

of parties and of party men is always strife over what they 
call " principles." 

We have in this country every four years a convulsion 
of the whole nation. The entire business of the comma- 
stands still at an immense money loss. If the men 
of a new party come into power, they may adopt a totally 
new system of levying revenue; they may bring in a new 
tariff; they may overthrow the existing currency, or issue 
a quantity of irredeemable paper money. The commer- 
cial and banking* operations of the whole country may be 
thrown into utter confusion. Prosperity may be changed 
to ruin, for large numbers of our citizens, according to the 
particular measures that demagogues think will carry them 
into office. The mere machinery and labor of a Presiden- 
tial election cost immense sums of money. This money 
is paid, in one shape or another, by the people, and out of 
the people's purse. Why should the people pay this im- 
mense tax every four years, have their public servants at 
all times doing duty to the party instead of to the State, 
and be subjected to this immense business loss and this 
enormous upheaval of the whole social fabric 8 We may, 
indeed, live through it. The people's liberties may not be 
permanently destroyed by it. We may be prosperous in 
spite of it. But why should we have it ? 

The English system of government and our own system 
are both bad. We have a revolution once in four years. 
They have one whenever the ministry are beaten in the 
House of Commons. I do not yet feel certain which sys- 
tem is the worse. 

We come, then, to the next point. Is it a necessary 
thing to have this party strife, in order to keep alive the 
interest of the people in public affairs? 



140 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

One of the most frequent complaints of the day is that 
our people, and especially the educated men, do not take 
an interest in public affairs. And the complaint is in a 
measure well-founded. Men do not take a healthy inter- 
est in the affairs of our government. And why is it so ? 
Simply this : the ordinary citizen knows that he has no 
power, that the party men can and will manage our gov- 
ernment affairs very nearly as they choose. But before 
party machinery and party power became so fully devel- 
oped, men did take the deepest interest in all the affairs of 
the nation. 

All men in the country, but the educated men more 
than any others, think and read and talk of public affairs 
more now than ever before. As a class, the educated men 
are more eager than any others to go into public life. 
Nothing else has for them such fascinations. But they 
cannot get there. They are kept out by the party leaders. 
They try again and again, and they fail. What has at 
times seemed the indifference of elegant leisure is in fact 
the despair of repeated defeat. 

Is it a possible thing that men of any class should lose 
their interest in the public affairs of their own country, of 
their own time ? This government and these laws, we live 
under them. They make or mar men's fortunes and the 
fortunes of their children. Men who read and think at 
all, read and think of the affairs of every people and of 
every age. Wherever we go, in a railway train or in the 
farm-houses, we hear all men discussing matters of Euro- 
pean politics. Are we suddenly to lose all interest in the 
affairs only of our own country, and in the making of our 
own laws 2 On the contrary, remove these party oligar- 
chies, and the best men in the country would again come 
into public life. Remove these party contests, and we 



PARTY— ITS CAUSES, \ ATI KK, AM) USES. ill 

should have, instead of this feverish upheaval once in four 

years over a mere straggle for office, a steady, healthy in- 

• in questions of public policy. When men found 

that they really had some power in affairs of State, they 

would try to use it. .Men in any country have never, un- 
der any circumstances, been able to lose their interest in 
the affairs of their own (Government. We are not now 
to have Buch a miracle for the first time in the world's 

history. 

To say that we must have these party contests in order 
to keep up the interest of the people in public affairs, is to 
say that a man must have a fever once in four years to 
keep warm. 

Are these party combinations, then, necessary to preserve 
free government \ 

All the republics in history have been destroyed by 
party — by these organizations of men who have made a 
profession of carrying elections. The tyranny of kings has 
been often overthrown by one people or another in the 
history of nations. The tyranny of party is the most dan- 
gerous enemy freedom can have. No people lias ever yet 
conquered it. These single royal tyrants, with only one 
life, are puny things; but this immense monster party, 
which is immortal, has the people's own strength. 

But if these were the only evils resulting from party 
combinations we might be comparatively at ease. We have 
not yet the worst point. It is this necessity of carrying 
elections, under which we put all our public servants, which 
is the root of all the corruption of our public men. We 
bind them hand and foot, in the chains of party slavery. 
And we do more: we compel them to serve the powerful 
in the land which control votes. Our public ser- 
. <>n questions of revenue, on all matters of legislation, 



142 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

where we have a right to their honest judgment and hon- 
est action, do not give us their honest judgment and hon- 
est action. They are driven to look at the next election. 
They say they work for their party. They give it too 
good a name. They shape their official action in such a 
way as to gain the support at the next election of the rich 
and powerful men and corporations. Disguise it as Ave 
may, they sell their official action for votes ; and the next 
step downward, the selling official action for money, is one 
that is easily and often taken. But that is not often the 
first step. 

Some men have been in the habit of thinking that the 
corruption which we have had among members of Congress 
and of State Legislatures was some special fruit of some 
special feature of republican institutions. That is a mis- 
take. "Whenever, nnder any system of government, it is 
necessary for public officers to catch votes for elections, 
they will catch the votes. The votes will be bought and 
paid for, with money, or office, or official action, as the case 
may be, whether it be under a monarchy or a republic. 

It will be well to examine some points in the history of 
corruption in England. 

Since Parliamentary government came into existence, it 
has been necessary for English party men to control votes 
and seats in the House of Commons. These votes and 
seats which were needed by party men, were, until no very 
long time since, procured in the simplest possible way — 
they were simply bought and sold for money, as a matter 
of ordinary every-day business. 

Macaulay says: "From the day on which Caermarthen 
was called a second time to the chief direction of affairs, 
Parliamentary corruption continued to be practised with 
scarcely an intermission by a long succession of statesmen 



PARTY— ITS CAUSES, NATURE, AND USES. 143 

till the close of the American war." Mr. Eallam gives* 
£90,000 as the annual amount of what was called "secret 
service money," a fund always believed to have been used 
for the purpose of buying members of Parliament. The 
Credit Mobilier and Union Pacific scandals in this country 
are the merest repetitions, with changes of name, of the 
purchase of members in Parliament by the City of London 
and the East India Company in the reign of William II L 
There was then, as in later years, the same difficulty in 
finding witnesses and in opening their mouths; the same 
wonderful losses of books, papers, and memories; the same 
mysterious disbursements of large amounts of money paid 
in the coin of the realm. The East India Company paid 
in one year, as was alleged by its officers, to members of 
Parliament, £80,000. The Speaker of the House of Com- 
mons received one bribe of a thousand guineas for simply 
expediting a local bill. And one bribe of £50,000 was of- 
fered to the Earl of Portland. George III. wrote to Lord 
North : "Mr. Robinson sent me the list of the speakers last 
night, and of the very good majority. I have this morn- 
ing sent him £6000, to be placed to the same purpose as 
the sum transmitted on the 21st August." 

It was to be placed where it would do the most good. 

Although the practice of buying votes in Parliament 
and paying for them in money seems to have ceased about 
the beginning of this century, yet the practice of buying 
and selling seats in Parliament for money went on for 
years longer. It was the ordinary practice. Before the 
Reform Bill, men bought seats from the proprietors of 
the nomination boroughs; after the Reform Bill, they 
bought seats from the electors. The bargain was made 

* " Const, Hist.," vol. iii. p. 164. 



144 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

and carried out, and the money paid, openly, in the sight 
of all men. 

Public opinion in England has greatly diminished the 
amount of corruption in English Parliamentary elections. 
But down to this day it is, as far as I can gather, among 
gentlemen of position and education in England, esteemed 
a perfectly right and proper thing to buy with money the 
votes of electors to a seat in Parliament. Undoubtedly 
public opinion is better than it was. Corruption in Par- 
liamentary elections is not what it was. But so late as 
the year 1870, in a report of a Commission on the elec- 
tions in the borough of Bridgewater,* it is stated : • 

P. VI. " We have obtained quite enough evidence to justify us in 
reporting to your Majesty that there is much reason to believe that 
in Bridgewater, within the present century at least, no election has 
ever taken place except under the influence of practices which, not 
only by the Lex Parliament^ but by the common and statute law for 
the time being in force, were corrupt and criminal practices, and law- 
fully punishable as such." * * * 

P. VII. " Whether in the old times, when the areas of place and 
population were narrow, the qualification such as we have stated it, 
and the constituency small, or at the present time, when all those 
conditions appear to have extended to the uttermost, or in the inter- 
vening period, the proportion of local corruption has been always the 
same. It is always three-fourths, at least, of the actual constituency 
who are said to be hopelessly addicted to the taking or seeking of 
bribes, and who show by their conduct that the imputation is well 
deserved ; while of the remainder a very large part, perhaps by far 
the largest, are addicted to the giving or offering or negotiating of 
bribes. Rank and station appear to make no difference. Neither 
do we find that the needy are more corrupt than the 'well to do,' 
nor the latter less prone to corruption. It is the chronic disease of 
the place, and not one political party is more or less than any other 

* Bridgewater Election Inquiry Commission: Reports from Com- 
missioners, 1870. Parliamentary Records, vol. xix, p. 30. 



PARTY— ITS CAUSESj NATURE, AND USES. 146 

tainted with the malady. Tlio Tory bribes or is bribed because be 
believes that his adversary will forestall him in the race it' he at- 
tempts to run it on 'purity 1 principles. The Liberal acts, ami justi- 
fies his action, precisely in the same way." 

Speaking of the doctors, the report say- : 

"They claimed their bribes as of right — a common right, a righl 
founded not so much upon contract as upon ancient precedent and 
iral practice.' 1 

The report further stated that out of six hundred voters 
only about fifty would take no part in corrupt practices 

before 1868; and 

u at the present time at least two-thirds of the new r voters were of 
a class who are always amenable to money considerations, and the 
old voters remained much as they were before. Mr. Barham, indeed, 
stated that when he came into the town on the morning of the elec- 
tion he saw hundreds of the new voters standing about in the cattle 
market, like cattle themselves, waiting for the highest bidder." 

The report of the commission shows very clearly, as do 
other Parliamentary records, that bribery at elections to 
Parliament was reduced to a regular profession, followed 
regularly by men who gave their services for pay to the 
men in either party who might chance to need them. And 
these practices were not apparently disapproved or ques- 
tioned by reputable English gentlemen. In the same re- 
port appears the statement as to the Bridgewater election 
of 1866 (p. 37), that " Walter Bagehot and George Patton, 
Esquires, two of the candidates, were privy and assenting to 
some of the corrupt practices extensively prevailing there- 
at." And in a schedule of bribers annexed to the same 
report appears the name of Alexander William Kinglake. 

Some men have an idea that there has been some magic 
in the name or essence of an English country gentleman 
that made what is called corruption impossible. But, 



146 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

when corruption in the House of Commons was at its 
height, the House was filled with English country gentle- 
men. English gentlemen in those days thought it no 
harm to buy or sell votes in Parliament as well as seats. 
It is not believed that members of Parliament any longer 
sell their own votes for money. But Mr. Bagehot writes,* 
in our own time : " There are said to be two hundred 
'members for the railways' in the present Parliament. If 
these two hundred choose to combine on a point w T hich 
the public does not care for, and which they care for be- 
cause it affects their purse, they are absolute." 

From all which facts it is to be gathered that buying 
seats in Parliament for money, and selling votes in Parlia- 
ment for other good and valuable considerations, are prac- 
tices not yet entirely dead, even under a " constitutional 
monarchy." 

But it may be urged that free government has never 
yet in the world existed without parties ; that, even if we 
could abolish parties, the experiment would be. one full of 
danger, of which no man can foresee the result. 

Here, too, we need not rest on theory or conjecture. 
The experiment has been tried. We have its results. 

There was one time in the history of this country when 
we had no political parties. Parties did not come into 
being until the recurrence of two or three Presidential elec- 
tions had shown the use that could be made of them. 
And until just before Mr. Jefferson's election in 1800 we 
had nothing that deserved the name of party. 

And how did the people prosper without those blessed 
engines of liberty ? 

We went through the war of the Revolution without 

* "English Constitution," p. 170. 



PARTY — ITS CAUSES, NATURE, AND I S 117 

parties. Some meD were royalists, others were rebels; 
but there were do organizations that could be called polit- 
ical parties. Men were agreed to fight the common ene- 
my, at least as far as party was concerned. 

The war ended. We had to form a ( !onstitution ; again 
we had no parties. The members <>f the Constitutional 
I mention came together, a body^f men having just as 
strong differences of opinion as any body of men at any 
later time. Some of them wished a monarchy, some of 
them a republic, others a mere league. They met, agreed 
on nothing, either of principle or of detail, as to the feat- 
ure- of the government they were to have. They were 
not even agreed to have a government. But they met to 
agree on something. And they did agree. They made 
the framework of a government, a harmonious system, 
not indeed a perfect one, but, according to Mr. Gladstone, 
" the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time 
by the brain and purpose of man."* 

And after the Constitution was formed a great work 
was still to be done. Here was a nation that was bank- 
rupt, weighed down with public and private debt, ruined 
by a long w\ar for freedom. A new government was to 
be created under this new Constitution. There were no 
courts. There was no army or navy. There was no treas- 
ury or revenue. To organize a government, build up its 
credit, create a treasury and fill it, that was the work 
which our public men had to do. And it was done. The 
legislation of the first twelve years under the Constitution 
was almost as remarkable as the Constitution itself. That 
it ion of those twelve years made our Government 

* 4 * Kin Beyond Sea, 1 ' North American A . Sept. -Oct.. 1878, 
p. U 



148 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

substantially what it now is. The whole machinery has 
since been operated almost precisely as those men of the 
first three administrations left it. The work of succeeding 
Congresses, compared with the legislation of our first twelve 
years, has been hardly anything more than the passing of 
revenue and appropriation bills. 

At the beginning of the events that finally led to the 
War of the Revolution, it had been necessary for all men 
to agree on some one line of action. When the war began, 
it was necessary for all men to agree on some one form of 
league. When the war was ended, it was necessary for all 
men to agree on some one form of government. And up 
to that time the people had gone on without parties or par- 
ty contests. It was, in fact, almost entirely due to the ab- 
sence of parties and party contests that men, in the thirty 
years from 1770 to 1800, were able to carry out any one 
of the points of policy, every one of which was absolutely 
necessary to accomplish the freedom of the colonies and 
the formation of a new national government. If the two 
great political parties that grew up within the first twelve 
years of our national history had come into being before 
the Constitution was formed, I do not believe the Consti- 
tution would ever have had an existence. If they had 
come into being immediately after the Constitution was 
formed, I do not believe the Government would ever have 
had an organization. 

And after the Constitution was formed and the new 
Government was organized, we still needed, as before, 
agreement. Whether men had before wished a mere 
league or a government was now a matter of no moment. 
They had agreed, to have a government. Whether men 
had before wished to have a republic or some other form 
of government was now a matter of no moment. They 



PARTY—ITS CAUSES, NATURE, AND USES L49 

had agreed, to have a republic. Their differences of opin- 
ion on these points were dead things of the past; and bo 
they should have been left If it be Baid that although it 
had already been decided that we were to have a republic, 

yet it was still to bo decided what kind of a republic we 
had made by this now Constitution, the answer is, that was 

a question to be decided, not at the polls, but in the courts. 
If, after the experience of years, it should be found that 
this Government, formed under this Constitution, was nol 
a successful working machinery, then, indeed, it would be 
time to have another Constitutional Convention, and see 
if this machinery could not be in some way modified, so 
as to make it a success. But until that was done, and 
so long as this Constitution remained unchanged, the thing 
for all men to do was to agree, in giving it the fairest trial. 
It may be said that men had to discuss the qualifications 
of candidates and the advisability of measures. No doubt 
that is what they should have done. That is precisely 
what under the party system they did not do. But after 
they had discussed the qualifications of men and the ad- 
visability of measures, will any one deny that they were 
all bound to obey the laws ! 

But it may be urged, How has it happened that so 
many men, great and able men, have been convinced of the 
necessity of parties \ Can it be that these men have all 
been mistaken, and that party, with all its evils, has not 
had its mission ? 

There is one time in the history of national governments 
— rather, there is the time before they begin to have a his- 
tory or an existence — when something like party has a 
legitimate place in national mechanics. There is one thing 
which so dwarfs all others in importance as to make it 
for men to sink all other differences, and combil 



150 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

that one question alone. And that is the struggle for free- 
dom and free government against tyranny and usurpation. 
Wherever usurped power has been maintained, by its 
hereditary transmission to the descendants of usurpers, 
there it is just and wise for all men to combine, in one 
party, if we choose so to call it, to conquer their freedom, 
peaceably if they can, by war if they must. But when 
that has been done, when freedom has been conquered, 
when a people has once established it as a fact that usurp- 
ed power is not to be inherited, but that the rulers of a 
people are its servants, to be chosen by the people them- 
selves, then the need of party, or anything like party, is 
gone. Party then becomes nothing but faction. 

Now, in 1787 we had our freedom. Our right to choose 
our own rulers had been conquered. We needed no par- 
ties. And at first we had none. Their absence was our 
blessing. 

We soon had parties — when we needed them not. And 
we have ever since had them. Their presence has been 
our bane. 

Well might Washington give, as his last advice to the 
American people, a warning on the dangers of faction. It 
is well to recall his words of wisdom : 

"I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the 
State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geo- 
graphical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive 
view, and warn you, in the most solemn manner, against the baneful 
effects of the spirit of party generally. 

* * * * * * * 

" It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less 
stifled, controlled, or repressed ; but in those of the popular form, it 
is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy. 

" The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened 
by the spirit of revenge, natural to party discussion, which in differ- 



PARTY ITS CAUSES, NATURE, AM) USES. L51 

os and oountries has perpetrated (In* most horrid enormities, la 
Itself a frightful despotism. Hut this leads at Length to a more for- 
mal and permanent despotism." 

This thing that we call party is the poison which makes 
a healthy national life an impossible thing. These great 

party combinations, instead of being combinations of citi- 
zens to carry wise measures in the interest of the people, 
are only combinations of politicians to carry elections in 
their own interest. Parties, so far from being necessary 
to carry measures, to keep alive the interest of the people 
in public affairs, and thus to preserve free government, are 
the most powerful hindrances to efficient action, keep 
alive endless and needless strife, are hot-beds of corruption, 
and are the most dangerous enemies that free government 
can have. 

This party oligarchy under which we now suffer is not 
the creation of any one set of men. The present party 
leaders are not responsible for its existence ; they are not 
to be blamed for it It is the natural legitimate fruit of 
our government system. It is not from choice that our 
public men sacrifice the interests of the people for those 
of party. They form these immense and powerful combi- 
nations only because our system of government drives 
them to it. They must carry these elections, or they will 
lose their places. They will make this election work the 
profession of their lives so long as we compel them to do 
so. But if we will only free them from the necessity they 
are now under of doing party work, we can have from 
them as faithful service and as good work as we have 
from the men we employ in private life. 

How is it to be done ? 

We must do two things. 

First, we must, if we can, keep our public servants out 



152 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

of this profession of carrying elections. Second, we must, 
if we can, destroy the profession altogether. 

In order to accomplish the first result, to keep our pub- 
lic servants out of the profession of carrying elections, we 
must free them from the necessity of going into it. In 
order to accomplish that, we must, unless there be some 
good reason against it, have every public servant hold his 
place as long as he does his work well. We must reg- 
ulate his tenure of office by the way in which he does 
its duties, instead of by the movements of the heavenly 
bodies. We must destroy the term system. 

In order to accomplish the second result, to destroy this 
profession of carrying elections, we must, if we can, so ar- 
range matters that the profession will not pay ; then men 
will not follow it. 

Now, if we elected only our Chief Executive and the 
members of our Legislature, there would be very few offices 
which election work could capture. And if we abolish 
the term system, no one could tell when even these few 
offices would be vacant. The professional election worker 
would find his occupation gone. He now keeps to his 
profession, even if he is for a time out of office, because 
he knows there will be, at the end of one, two, or four 
years, a large number of vacancies, some one of which he 
hopes to get. Take from him this hope, and he would 
betake himself to some other employment. 

If we should, then, do these two things, reduce the num- 
ber of elective offices, and abolish the term system, we 
should at least put our public servants under pressure to 
do well their official work, and put an end to this trade of 
carrying elections. Parties for any proper use, combina- 
tions for the purpose of getting wise government action, 
would still exist whenever there was any need for them. 



PARTY— ITS CAUSES, NATURE, AND Qfi L58 

1 » u t would there be other bad results? 

Our purpose in having the people elect their public 
officers ia to secure in the public service our host men. 

Our purpose in putting- our public officers on the term 

system is to secure from them their best service. Tf we 

do away with elections, what security have we for getting 

our best men in office ? And if we do away with the term 

system, what security have we that we shall get from our 

public servants their best service ? 

Those are the questions next to be considered. 

7* 



154 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE SECURITIES FOR GETTING THE BEST SERVANTS. 

It was assumed at the beginning of this argument that 
the general framework of our Government was good, that 
its division of the work and the duties of different depart- 
ments and officials was a wise cue. It was said that the 
main inquiry here would be. How we are to secure in each 
department of our public service — 

1. Our best men. 

2. Their best work. 

A short examination was then made of some points in 
the three distinctive types of government — Hereditary 
Monarchy, Constitutional Royalty, and what we have called 
a Republic. 

As to Hereditary Monarchy, the conclusion reached was 
that the hereditary system, as a machinery for selecting 
the men who were really to wield power in the State, was 
a failure, and that the good result which was sometimes 
gained under that system, that is, vigor and stability of 
administration, could be had under a government where 
the officers were elected, as well as where power was in- 
herited. It was simply a question of how much power a 
people should give their chief executive : and the power 
could be given as well to an elected executive as to a he- 
reditary executive. 

The examination of Constitutional Royalty brought us 
to the conclusion that executive officials should not do 



SECURITIES FOB GETTING THE BEST SERVANTS L50 

work in the Legislature, and should be held responsible 

only for their executive work; and further, that there 
should he at the head of the whole executive administra- 
tion one man, with power, who should be held responsible 
for the working of that whole executive administration. 

The examination of the working of our own system of 
government showed that, instead of our having a govern- 
ment where the people really have the choice and control 
of their officers, there has grown up a party oligarchy, 
which lias taken from the people the choice of their pub- 
lic servants and the control of their public work, and has 
established an oppressive tyranny. 

The argument then was, that party, instead of being a 
machinery necessary for getting wise action in the inter- 
est of the people, was only a combination of men for the 
carrying of elections, was the strongest hindrance to wise 
action ; that it was the cause of endless, needless, and per- 
nicious strife ; and that, instead of being a necessary engine 
of free government, it is really the most dangerous enemy 
free government can have. And it was urged that we 
must devise some means of ridding ourselves of these 
combinations, which exist only for the purpose of taking 
from us the choice of our public officers and the control 
of their public action. 

It was argued that the only means of destroying these 
party oligarchies, and freeing both citizens and our public 
servants from their tyranny, was to abolish the term sys- 
tem, and reduce, as far as possible, the number of elective 
offices. But it was suggested that possibly those changes 
might interfere with the securities which the people now 
have for getting the best men in the public service, and 
for getting from those men their best work. 

It was argued that the only officers to be elected by the 



156 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

people should be the Chief Executive and the members of 
the Legislature. It is to be noticed that under the na- 
tional Government those are the only officers that are elect- 
ed. But the arguments here brought forward are general 
in their bearing, and apply with the same force to State, 
county, city, and town governments as to the national 
Government. 

The argument from this point forth will still be made 
general. And the next point to be considered is, What 
are the real securities that the people can have for getting 
in each department of the public service their best men ? 

That means, of course, the getting in each department 
of the service the best men for that department. One 
of the points urged against what is called Constitutional 
Eoyalty was, that the heads of the executive administra- 
tion are selected for their fitness, not for the duties of 
their executive offices, but for work in the Legislature. 
And one of the worst results of party, whether under a 
system of constitutional royalty or under a republic, is 
that public officers of all kinds are selected for their fitness, 
not for the duties of any office, but only for election work. 

To secure the best men in our service, we must, if we 
can, secure two things — 

1. That the best men shall offer themselves for the 
service. 

2. That they shall be taken into the service. 

How, then, shall we secure the first point of these two, 
that the best men shall offer themselves for the service ? 

It has been already said that private employers have no 
difficulty in finding good men to do their work. Men 
usually seek employments that are congenial, and sooner 
or later find the work for which they are best fitted. The 
men who are fit for the people's service will be sure to 



SECURITIES FOR GETTING THE BEST SERVANTS. i:.7 
thai service. We can here trust to the operation of 

natural laws, if we will only allow them to operate. To 
simply allow the operation of natural laws must be our 
first end. 

To accomplish this end, the main thing we have to do is 
simply to remove the barriers we have raised by our sys- 
tem of false republicanism, to destroy this party oligarchy, 
which drives from the service the men who will serve only 
the people, and keeps in the service only those men who 
will serve party. 

But, besides that, the people should use the immense 
advantages which they have over all private employers in 
competing- for labor. As things now are, w T e throw them 
all away. 

These advantages are — 

1. The people have a service that is, or can be, more 
permanent than that of any private employer. 

2. Their affairs are more vast, more important ; and the 
people are richer than any private employer. They should, 
therefore, and can, pay better, in money. 

3. Above all, they can in their service give fame and rep- 
utation beyond what any private employer can dream of 
giving. 

How do we use these advantages? 

All professions and occupations have their chances. 
But, aside from those chances, every profession or business 
in the country, other than our public service, gives to the 
men who enter it a certainty of employment for life, if they 
will do honest work. The carpenter, the blacksmith, the 
lawyer, and the physician all know that, if they only do 
honest work, they are certain of having w r ork all their 
So we deal with all private servants. Is it so with 
our public service? 



158 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

To our public servants alone we say, Whether you do 
our work well or ill, you can have a certainty of employ- 
ment only for four years or two years, and for any longer 
time you must take your chance of carrying an election at 
the end of that term. You may grow gray in our service ; 
you may give us the best labors of a long life. You may 
have spent many years so faithfully in learning the duties 
of your office that you are without any other profession, 
and have no other means of earning your bread. We give 
you no certainty of employment for any time. We warn 
you in the outset that, whenever the party leaders need 
your salary to reward some of their followers for work 
done in carrying elections, they will have it, and your 
gray hairs and your years of faithful service will count for 
nothing. 

That is the sober truth, without exaggeration. That is 
precisely what we say to the men who wish to enter our 
employ. Can we, on such terms, get the best men ? 

Take the next point. Our public affairs are vastly more 
important than the business of any private employer ; they 
involve larger amounts of money and property — they con- 
cern wider and more varied interests ; and the people of 
the United States have in their possession and under their 
control the wealth and fortunes of all the individuals in 
the land. We ought to pay our public servants more than 
any private employers can possibly afford to pay. We thus 
have it in our power to draw to our service the very ablest 
men. We need them. We ought to pay for their work, 
as we can well afford to do. 

Moreover, the men we need to do our government work 
are not the men who live the lives of elegant leisure, on 
fortunes that other men have made for them. We wish 
these men of leisure in the service, if they can stand the 



SECURITIES FOR GETTING THE BEST SERVANTS. L59 

. if they can and will do the hard work But in the 
service of a real government there is no place for idlers. 
Ilciv is the finest work in the world, to be done by the 
men who can do it best. Men's minds are like their bod- 
ies ; those only arc good for use that are trained in hard 
work of some kind. In the large number of instances the 
men in the world who can do good work arc not the men 
of fortune, but they are men who need to be paid in money 
for the work they do ; and those men we cannot get un- 
less we pay them well in money. There are places enough 
in the world where they will be well paid. To those places 
they will go. 

Now, although we can pay and ought to pay, in money, 
more than any employer in the country, what we do is 
this : We say to the men who wish to enter our service, 
Although we give you no certainty of permanent employ- 
ment, w 7 e do give you a certainty of poor compensation. 
We are the richest employers you can find ; we are the 
meanest paymasters. In any other service than ours you 
have the possibility of a reasonable fortune. We give you 
the certainty, if you are honest, and give your whole time 
honestly to our service, of little better than poverty. 

Is that a wise policy ? In the war of the rebellion, of 
what consequence would ten or twenty millions of dollars 
in salaries have been to the people of the United States, 
if, by paying that amount of money, they could have saved 
the twenty-five hundred millions and the lives that were 
thrown away ? It is always so. There is never any econ- 
omy in poorly paid labor. 

But it is on the third point where we have our greatest 
advantage that we make our greatest sacrifice. 

We have it in our power to give to our public servants 
fame and reputation for good work done in our service. 



160 A TEUE REPUBLIC. 

We make it certain that they shall not gain fame or repu- 
tation in that service, if they do nothing but serve us well. 
Here, too, the term system makes our chief difficulty; 

Even if we should once get in our service all the best 
men in the country, putting wholly out of consideration 
the effects of party, the system of elections for short terms 
of years would certainly result in driving from our service 
the best men. 

The expectation was, in having elections at intervals of 
years, that, when an official did good service, he would be 
re-elected at the end of his term. That is not, however, 
the way in which the system operates. Nearly every offi- 
cial act of every public officer, according as it is done in 
one way or the other, works a direct gain or loss to some 
one man or set of men. The men whose interests are in- 
jured by the action of public officers know their injuries, 
and can easily combine. The interests that our officials 
protect by upright action are commonly the general inter- 
ests of the whole people, who cannot, or do not so easily, 
combine. Moreover, by each separate act a public officer 
may make a new set of enemies. At the end of his term 
many men, for many reasons, wish his one place. The nat- 
ural result is, that when a public officer stands for a re- 
election, all his enemies, and the friends of all other men, 
combine against him alone. And what chance of re-elec- 
tion, under such circumstances, has a man who has sim- 
ply discharged his duty, without conciliating by improper 
means the powerful interests in the land, whatever they 
may be ? Suppose the case of a man of great and varied 
knowledge, a master of the principles of finance, learned 
in jurisprudence, a man of sound sense and judgment : put 
him in Congress to-day, let him simply give himself to the 
most faithful performance of his duty, never speaking but 



SECURITIES FOR GETTING THE BEST SERVANTS. 161 

with an honest purpose, doing his work in the mosl skil- 
ful but unobtrusive manner; let him neither have nor use 
the arts of the politician ; let him neither flatter nor Receive 
the people who put him in his place, and will any one" 
claim that such a man would be Likely to secure a Becond 
term in Congress, as affairs now go, <>r as they have gone 
at any time in the last thirty years 1 

When, then, we add the certainty that this plan of gen- 
eral elections for short terms of years certainly brings into 
existence this army of men who make the carrying of elec- 
tions their profession, who need all the places under gov- 
ernment for their own purposes, what human possibility is 
there that the good men who do now and then get into 
the public service should stay there ? 

We see every session in Congress a few eminent men 
of business — bankers, mine-owners, and merchants. They 
never appear for more than one or two terms. What does 
it mean ? Simply that these men, who have, by the gain- 
ing of their own fortunes, proved that they are probably 
men of honesty and ability, who have a strong wish to en- 
ter public life, and give to the service of the people the 
fruits of their experience and the use of their powers, 
cannot remain in the people's service, because they are in- 
dependent, because they make enemies and do not serve 
party. 

The best men cannot long stay in our service. But 
unless a service is permanent, men can have no possibility 
of gaining in it fame and reputation. In all the ordinary 
professions and occupations of life, reputation comes only 
from long and faithful service. Can it be otherwise in the 
public service? When we established the term system, we 
made it as certain as we could that when the system had 
time to work out its natural results it would be Lmpossi- 



162 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

ble for men to get fame from simply doing well the peo- 
ple's work. We drive them into the profession of election- 
carrying. 

By our term system, then, and by the tyranny of party, 
which is its chief result, and by our practice of giving to 
our public servants poor compensation, we not only refuse 
to use the great advantages of our position with reference 
to other employers, but we do all we can to keep the best 
men out of our service. 

But suppose all these barriers removed, and that the 
best men for our service offered themselves for it, as they 
certainly would. How, then, are we to make sure that the 
best men shall be taken into the service ? 

To secure this point we must so arrange that — 

1. The choice shall be made by those who are best able 
to make it. 

2. The men who are to make the choice shall have all 
possible means of testing the men from whom they are to 
choose. 

3. That the choice shall be made freely and honestly. 

The first of these points, that the choice of public ser- 
vants shall be made by those who are best able to make 
it, shuts off at once, as to the whole body of executive 
officials, except the chief, the method of popular election. 

I admit and claim that, for the selection of the Chief Ex- 
ecutive of the nation, the free choice of the whole people, 
if it can be had (not the choice of a few party leaders), is 
the best means that can be devised. So, too, I believe that, 
when party tyranny is destroyed, the free choice of the 
whole people is the best machinery for choosing the mem- 
bers of a legislative body. But as to the qualifications of 
the vast number of executive officials in a large public ser- 
vice, it is an utterly impossible thing that the people at 



SECURITIES FOB GETTING THE BEST SERVANTS 168 

large should be able to form an intelligent judgment, or 
any judgment at all. 

The point I make is, not that the system of popular 
election places the choice of our public officials in the 

hands o( any ignorant class of the people, hut that (til the 
people, on this point, without reference to class, are igno- 
rant, are equally ignorant, and wholly ignorant. As to 
these qualifications of single Government officials, no one 

can possibly know anything at all, except the immediate 
superiors in office of the men in question. 

To secure, then, that the choice of onr public servants 
should be made by the men who are best able to form a 
judgment, or by men who are able to form any judgment at 
all, it is necessary that all subordinates in all our executive 
offices should be appointed by the head of the office, from 
the men whom he has tried in the office ; in other words, 
that as to the great body of executive officials, election by 
the people, or by any part of the people, should be alto- 
gether abandoned. 

And as far as this point alone is concerned, if w r e con- 
cede it as to any of the subordinates, we must concede it 
as to all. As to any one branch in any of the great exec- 
utive departments, who is there that can know anything of 
the real working capacities of the men in that branch, ex- 
cept the man who is its head, who has the work of those 
men every day under his own eyes? As to the heads of 
the different branches, who can possibly know anything of 
their working capacities, except the man who sees their 
work every day, their immediate superior, the head of the 
department ! And as to the heads of departments, who can 
ibly make as intelligent a choice as can be made by the 
Chief Executive, who has had the department matters and 
lepartment men under his eyes, it may he for years '. 



164 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

As far, then, as this point is concerned, all the officials 
of the entire service, except the Chief Executive, should be 
appointed, and not elected. And the appointments should 
be made, of the officials in each office and department, by 
the head of the office or department. 

This system, it is very easily seen, would result simply 
in a steady stream, by promotion, from the bottom to the 
top, throughout the whole executive administration, until 
we came to the very head — to the Chief Executive. And 
that is precisely what we have iu every well -organized 
service in the world. The Chief Executive cannot, of 
course, appoint himself. And he should be elected, as it 
seems to me, by the vote of the whole people — substan- 
tially as he is, in form, now. He should be a mau who 
has already, in some way, made a national reputation. 
And if party and party influence were destroyed, no man 
would be elected by the people who had not such a na- 
tional reputation. 

The intention in giving the people the direct choice of 
their officials was to secure a wise choice. The people, as 
to this vast number of executive officials, cannot, from mere 
lack of knowledge as to the men, make as wise a choice 
for themselves as some one else can make for them. They 
should, then, trust the choice to those men who can best 
make it. 

How, then, can these men who are to make the choice 
have all possible means of testing the men from whom 
they are to choose ? 

Here again we need, of all things, a service that is per- 
manent. The men in the service must have time to show 
what they can do. There must be time for the processes 
of natural selection to operate. Make the service perma- 
nent, and the men in it will all find their level. As cer- 



SECURITIES FOB GETTING THE BEST SERVANTS. L65 

tainlv as ii happens in other professions, the able men 

will rise to the top, and the weak ones will drop to the 
bottom. 

Much is now written and said in favor of wliat is term- 
ed competitive examination. No doubt competitive ex- 
amination is a thing to be used. But examination in 
what? In Greek and Latin and Mathematics! They 
rood in their place. Give every man, in every profes- 
sion, as much of them as he ean have. But they will not, 
by themselves, give us good public servants. What we 
must have is the competitive examination of actual service. 
We must in our Government service put men to the same 
that we do in other services and professions — the test 
of actual work. Have men enter the public service always 
at the bottom of the ladder, and have them compete at the 
special work they are to do. Let them prove themselves. 
Find the best men by the natural selection that actual ser- 
vice will make. 

But to have the possibility of any such competitive ex- 
amination as this (and it is the only one that can have any 
real value), w T e must have no term of service of four years, 
or two years, or any term of years whatever. The public 
service must have the same permanence that w T e find in 
the service of our great mills and railroads, if we hope to 
be able to find men out, to know what they can really do. 
We must drop the men at the end of one day, if they so 
soon show 7 themselves unfit. If they show themselves fit, 
we ought to keep them for their lives. 

Then, as to the third point, how are we to secure that 
the choice of officials shall be made freely and honestly? 

As far as concerns the appointments by the superior ex- 
ecutive officers of their subordinates, we must secure hon- 
esty of official action in that respect by the same means 



166 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

through which we secure it in other respects. That is the 
point to be considered in the next chapter. 

And as to the election by the people of a chief execu- 
tive and of members of our legislatures, how are we to 
secure that those elections by the people shall be honestly 
and freely made ? 

For that we only need to destroy party. The American 
people can be trusted. This fear that some men have of 
the people's honest vote is not well-grounded. Wise and 
honest opinions have their due weight with all men. Our 
difficulty now is, that party demagogues have an undue 
weight, which they get only from the fact that they con- 
trol all this immense election machinery. Destroy that, 
and they will have only such power and influence among 
men as they can gain in an honest natural way — in honest 
natural employments. We have created an artificial con- 
dition of things. 

Were the people left to make their own choice of the 
men who are to make their laws and do their other govern- 
ment work ; were they unmolested by the arts and mechan- 
isms of party men who have selfish purposes of their own 
to serve ; were all the citizens, high and low, rich and poor, 
learned and ignorant, simply left to their own counsels, and 
allowed to honestly choose the men they really deem the 
best fitted to manage their public affairs, they would, to- 
day and at all times, place the Government in the hands of 
the best men. The mass of the American people, and of 
any people that has ever conquered the right to choose 
their own rulers and take any real part in the working 
of their own Government, are honest men. They respect 
honest men. They are guided by honest and capable 
men in all the ordinary affairs of life. The people would 
choose honest men to Government positions, if they were 



SECURITIES FOR GETTING THE BEST SERVANTS, l «vt 

left to themselves and to the advice of their natural ad- 
Is there, even now, any point that makes a man BO 
Strong a candidate 1 as the having a reputation fur honesty I 

Remove party machinery and the influence of party men, 
and the people's choice would almost invariably be a wi>e 
one. There have been many times in our history when 
elections by the people have been had of men to fill 
important stations, and when, from special circumstances, 
there has been no party pressure, or party pressure lias had 
no effect. The uniform result has been that the people 
have made a good choice. Times of great public danger 
come, when the people are thoroughly alarmed, when ev- 
ery man thinks and acts to the best of his ability. The 
best men then are chosen to public place. So it was when 
men were sent to the Continental Congress and the Con- 
stitutional Convention. So it was throughout the early 
years of our Government, before party got its growth. 
Many times in late years it has happened that the peo- 
ple have become weary and disgusted with the conduct of 
the professional politicians who have for years succeeded 
in capturing their votes. They rebel, and elect a man 
of character. Ordinary men, of less than the ordinary 
amount of education, are amenable to ordinary influences, 
to reason and to honest argument. They, as well as the 
richer and more highly educated men, appreciate the ne- 
cessity of having honest men in the Government. They 
would be influenced bv the honest men in their voting at 
all times, were elections free from party pressure. In all 
private affairs of life, all men, rich or poor, learned or ig- 
norant, choose their servants, their blacksmiths and their 
shoemakers, their lawyers and their physicians, looking to 
the one point of whether these their servants have proved 
themselves to be honest and capable men. Is it conceiv- 



168 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

able that men will choose their public servants on any 
other grounds? Will they in all the ordinary affairs of 
life act like men of sense, but in their public affairs alone 
act like men without sense? That is not human nature. 
Whenever, in the history of this country, bad men have 
been elected to public office, it has been the work of party. 
Whenever the people have, for any reason, risen above par- 
ty pressure, they have elected good men. 

The argument of this chapter thus far amounts to this — 

1. To secure the best men for our Government service 
we must simply not stop the operation of natural laws. 
We must put our service on the same footing with the 
service of other employers. 

2. We must use the advantages that we have over other 
employers. And to that end — 

3. We must abolish the term system. 

4. We must have executive officials appointed by the 
heads of offices and departments, and not elected by the 
people. 

5. We must destroy party. And to that end we must 
destroy the term system. 

The argument in this chapter has been, in form, an in- 
quiry how, in the future, we are to succeed in getting the 
best men into our public service. The inquiry has been, 
in fact, how in the past we have succeeded in keeping the 
best men out of the public service. 

The ablest men in the country, the men who could best 
serve the people, have always been, and now are, eager to 
enter the people's service. They cannot get there. There 
is nothing that spurs men like the desire for fame. And 
that desire has at all times, and everywhere, brought for- 
ward great generals and great statesmen, whether in em- 
pires or republics, to serve the people, whenever the peo- 



SECURITIES FOR GETTING THE BEST SERVANTS. L69 

pie baa been allowed to take their service. Public life lias 
for most men a wonderful fascination. And in this coun- 
try, before party machinery and party management became. 
omplicated and powerful as they now are, before the 
term system had worked out its legitimate results, Con- 
gress was full of able men. The ablest men and the best 
men in the country were eager to go there. It is not 
kings and emperors alone who can get great men in the 
service of the State. The Athenians and Romans always 
were, and the people of the United States always have 
been, able to have their greatest men in their service for 
the mere asking. They can have it even without the ask- 
ing. These men beg to be taken into the public service. 
How is it that we do not take them ? How are we able 
to hinder this common law of nature, this law of supply 
and demand, from having in our Government affairs its 
legitimate operation? Everywhere else it is in full force. 
Here alone it fails. 

There have, in the history of the human race, been two 
great forces that have, at one time and another, struggled 
to prevent the people from selecting for themselves their 
wisest men to manage their Government affairs. Those 
two forces have been the tyranny of kings and the tyr- 
anny of faction. 

The tyranny of kings we need not fear. Until we over- 
throw the tyranny of faction, it will be an impossible thing 
for the people to get the services of their best men, though 
those men are at all times eager to serve them. 

But, it may be said, if we give up the term system, how 
shall we secure any " responsibility " on the part of our 
Government officials — how shall we secure good and faith- 
ful service at their hands ? 

That is the question next to be considered. 
8 



170 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE SECURITIES FOR GETTING- THE BEST SERVICE. 

The last chapter brought us again to the conclusion, 
which had been reached at earlier stages of the argument, 
that it was especially necessary, in order to do away with 
the evils under our present system of government, to abol- 
ish the term system. But we had yet to consider whether, 
by abolishing the term system, we should not lose some 
security which we now have for getting good and efficient 
service from our public officers. 

As I understand it, that is the only use of the term sys- 
tem — it is supposed to be a security for good and efficient 
service. It has, as I understand it, always been adopted 
and used, only as an indirect method of removal, for con- 
duct on the part of a public officer which in some point 
failed to meet the approval of the citizens who elected 
him. 

Let us consider, then, whether we can, as far as this 
point is concerned, safely abolish the term system. And 
let us make the inquiry broader. AYe have just consid- 
ered the question, What are the best securities that a peo- 
ple can have for getting the best servants? Let us go a 
step farther. Suppose we have our machinery such that 
we shall secure the best men in our public service, what, 
then, are the best securities we can have for securing from 
those best men their best work ! 



SECURITIES FOR GETTING THE BEST SERVICE. 171 

To secure from our public servants their best possible 
work involves two points. We must so frame our system 

BS to Becure that our servants shall — 

1. Do the best work within their knowledge. 

2. Have the knowledge how to do the best work. 

In other words, we must so frame our system as to se- 
cure, so far as we may — 

1. Thorough honesty ; and, 

'2. Thorough training. 

How is that to be done ! 

Here, again, let us leave theories and conjecture. Let 
us take actual experiments, and see what have been their 
results. 

Let us take a leaf from English history. 

The English people pride themselves on the purity of 
their courts. However it may be in all other places, in an 
English court of justice, it is always said, a lord is no bet- 
ter than a clown. There, at least, justice can be had by 
all men. But has it always been so ? 

So long as judges were dependent for their tenure of of- 
fice on the will of the Crown, there w r ere to be found in all 
England no viler tools of kingly tyranny than the judges 
on the bench. 

A change was made. English judges were made inde- 
pendent. They were made to hold office so long as they 
did their work honestly — during good behavior, as the 
phrase goes ; and at once English judges became honest 
and upright men. And, from the day of that change, the 
history of the English bench has been (with hardly one 
exception, if even one) a record of utter official purity. 
Everywhere else corruption ; on the bench alone purity. 
On the bench corruption until this change in tenure, and 
purity ever afterward. 



172 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

A remarkable result, surely ! Can it be matched in the 
records of any other people ? Let us take a companion 
picture from our own national life. 

While we were making with our executive and legislat- 
ure the experiment of short terms, we were making an- 
other experiment with our judiciary. 

For many years, in nearly all the States, the judiciary held 
office during good behavior. And for many years it was 
a point recognized by both parties, or by all parties, that 
judges should be independent of all party considerations, 
that their appointments should not be party appointments, 
and that their duty w r as solely to interpret the law, and to 
dispense justice impartially between man and man. After 
party lines became strongly fixed, it was seldom, indeed, 
that a President would appoint a judge from the ranks of 
his political opponents. But it was by all men agreed 
that a judge, after he w 7 as appointed, w T as, and should be, 
no longer a party man. Both parties agreed, that the judge 
should know neither party ; and in some way it happened 
that the judges of all our courts, both State and national, 
for a long series of years, were, with scarcely an exception, 
men whose perfect official purity was never so much as 
questioned. 

So matters for a long time remained. Party politicians 
had seats in Congress, in the State Legislatures, but not on 
the benches of the courts. 

So it remained in the State of New York until the year 
1846. And in that State the judges were wise and up- 
right, and the legislators were no more knavish or foolish 
than legislators of other States. 

In an evil hour certain wiseacres, most of them lawyers, 
tried to make a new State Constitution. Only one point 
of it needs here to be considered. And the consideration 



SECURITIES FOB GETTING THE BEST SERVICE. 178 

of this point, aa its effects developed in the State of New 

York, will answer for all like experiments in other States. 
At the time of this formation of a new Constitution, 

as tradition tells US, there were in the upper courts of the 

State two or three judges who were guilty of the crime of 
growing old. They were known to be upright. But ad- 
vancing years had stolen from them somewhat of their 
youthful impetuosity. As the Constitution then stood in 
New York, the judges of the upper courts went out of of- 
fice on reaching the age of sixty years. And, with that 
protection, there could hardly have been any alarming 
amount of senile incompetence on the bench. But there 
were two or three single individuals whom it was deemed 
necessary to get rid of. If they had been well-pensioned, 
and had been requested to resign, they would undoubtedly 
gladly have done so. There is no doubt that they would 
have been removed for incompetence by the Legislature, 
if they really were incompetent. But there has been at all 
times in our national history a chronic tendency to sweep- 
ing remedies and constitutional reforms, as they have been 
called. Certain men argued that if judges should be elect- 
ed, as were all other officers, for short terms of years, the 
people would be able, at the end of his term, to drop a 
judge who became incompetent or was guilty of miscon- 
duct. And, moreover, it was said the having men hold 
office for life was not thoroughly in conformity with re- 
publican institutions. Public servants should be responsi- 
ble, it was said, to the people, and should be dependent, on 
the people. So it was decided that the judges who had 
theretofore been appointed by the executive, subject to the 
approval of the Senate, to hold office during good behavior, 
should thereafter be elected by the people for a short term 
of years. 



174 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

The mere traditions of olden times at first kept the 
courts pure. Such a thing as electing a man to the bench 
because he was serviceable in carrying elections for his 
party had never been heard of. It was not at once 
thought of. Very soon, however, party men, who were 
in quest generally of offices, sought judicial offices. All 
other offices were given to party men. Why should not 
these judicial offices be so given ? They were so given. 
It had been learned that legislative and executive offices 
could be used for improper purposes, that legislative and 
executive action could be sold for favor, for influence, and 
for money. It was soon ascertained that judicial office 
and judicial action could be used and sold in the same 
way. And so judicial offices and action were used and 
sold. And in due course of time the bank accounts of 
certain judges of the highest courts in the State of New 
York showed that a seat on the bench could be made an 
office, if not of honor, at least of profit, and that ermine, 
though a costly robe, might yet yield rich revenues to the 
wearer. 

Some astute reason ers endeavored to set up a new stand- 
ard for official action, for legislators, executive officers, and 
judges on the bench. It was this : It was seriously ar- 
gued, and became a well-settled principle of practice, that 
so long as a man in Congress or a judge on the bench 
was not paid a particular sum of money for a particular 
vote or order or decree, the vote or order or decree was 
not " corrupt." A judge might ruin the business of a 
great railroad by a receivership, might imprison an hon- 
est citizen without bail, might take a banker's bonds from 
his safe by an illegal order, or might carry on the business 
of judicial burglary under pretended writs of court ; and so 
long as he was not paid in money for each one particular 



i RITIES FOR GETTING THE BEST SERVICE. 175 

act, bis conduct was not to bo called "corrupt." It was 

admitted that perhaps this conduct was nut altogether 
praiseworthy, was not in all respects proper. Bat, accord- 
ing to a doctrine thoroughly in rogue, these things might 

all be done for a politician who had got the judge his 

nomination and election, or they might be done for a 
stock speculator who furnished his house for him, gave 
presents to his children, lent him large sums of money, 
gave him sumptuous dinners with companions not to be 
named in decorous society, and wdio for these admirable 
qualifications was selected, of all men, as the fittest to be 
the judicial friend. For such a man a judge might break 
open safes and steal railroads, imprison honest men and 
release thieves ; and so long as there was no bargain for a 
specific money payment, there was nothing " corrupt" in 
it. It would be, indeed, hard for the man who suffered 
by any of these proceedings to see how the wrong done to 
him was any the less, because his property was stolen or 
he himself was thrown into prison merely to oblige a 
friend. It is hard to see how the judicial action is sub- 
stantially excused by any such consideration. But this 
was often argued. Later years will not, it is apprehended, 
sustain this distinction. 

It was soon seen that judicial offices were more impor- 
tant and valuable than any others. They had more power. 
These judges were above all power. These decrees of 
courts could be used to punish men or to shield them, for 
carrying through stock speculations or railroad elections, 
or elections to public office. And it came to be the fact 
that a very large proportion of the knavery of the party 
men was carried on under the protection and cover of 
process of the courts. It was all the more necessary that 
these places on the bench should be filled by men who 



176 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

should be under the control of party. The result was, 
that whereas judges in the State of New York had been 
uniformly pure, with never an exception, as far as I have 
ever heard, they became as corrupt as any other class of 
public servants. They had more power ; they were more 
lawless and tyrannical in the use of it. 

It was a point questioned by no one, at the time of the 
formation of the national Constitution, that the judges 
should hold office during good behavior. No argument 
was had as to the reasons for it. But there is no doubt 
as to what the reasons were. In England the tenure dur- 
ing good behavior had been adopted, simply to make the 
judges independent of the king. So long as they de- 
pended on the king for their continuance in office, it was 
found that the king could control their action. And it 
was later found in this country that so long as judges 
depended on party men for their continuance in office, 
party men could control their action. No question was 
made, by the statesmen who drafted the United States 
Constitution, that the judges on the bench should be abso- 
lutely independent of all men. On all other points they 
differed. On this point they all agreed. On this point 
all statesmen, everywhere, have agreed. Even in New 
York, such has been the general disgust with the results of 
the experiment in electing judges for a short term, that, al- 
though the power of the party men hindered a return to 
the tenure for good behavior, yet the people did, by a con- 
stitutional amendment, lengthen the terms of the judges 
of the upper courts to fourteen years. And this was done 
for the one avowed purpose of making them more inde- 
pendent ; yet the people shrank from making the judges, 
as they should be, completely independent, as far as their 
mere tenure of office can accomplish that result. 



SECURITIES FOR GETTING THE BEST SERVICE. 177 

.11 the time our national Constitution was adopted 
down to the appointment of a politician to the Chief-jus- 
fciceship o( the United States, there was not one single 

instance, so far as I am aware, where the purity of any 
United States judge was justly questioned. The history 
of the United States courts, till within a very recent period, 
is a glorious record of official purity. Marshall, Curtis, 
Taney, Story, and Nelson are names that will live forever 
in national history. 

On the bench we had perfect purity. We had it no- 
where else. 

But in the general Government and the State Govern- 
ments party politicians made the platforms, and substan- 
tially appointed the Representatives and Senators, the Pres- 
ident, and all the officers of the Government. Although 
the Presidents in the early times appointed only jurists to 
the United States courts, w T as it to be expected that they 
would always do so ? Themselves the creatures of violent, 
and sometimes unprincipled, party men, could it be sup- 
posed that they would appoint better men to the bench 
than they did to the executive departments, or better men 
than themselves to either? 

Docs any one believe that Mr. Lincoln appointed Mr. 
Chase to the Chief-justiceship of the United States because 
he believed Mr. Chase to be the fittest man for the place ? 
Mr. Chase may have been a great lawyer. It will hardly 
be claimed that he had, when made Chief-justice, proved 
himself one, or that he was appointed for the reason that 
Mr. Lincoln had any good reason to believe that he was 
one. And even if Mr. Chase had then been a man of high 
standing at the bar, the simple fact that he was the most 
prominent rival of Mr. Lincoln for the next Presidential 
term, was a most conclusive reason why he should not be 



178 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

appointed to the highest place on the bench. Whatever 
might be the fact, it was certain that the belief would be, 
that the appointment was made only to get rid of a rival. 
And there were very many men at the bar and on the 
bench, who had then proved themselves to be storehouses 
of legal wisdom. 

It has always been believed that two judges in the 
United States Supreme Court were appointed for the ex- 
press purpose of reversing a previous decision of that 
court on the constitutionality of the legal tender act ; and 
the decision was reversed, as the expectation was that it 
would be. 

It has always been believed, too, by a large portion of 
the American people, that the votes of several judges of 
the United States Supreme Court on the points of the last 
Presidential election were controlled by the party sympa- 
thies of the members of the court. The belief may be not 
correct. It is very unfortunate that it should have an ex- 
istence. It is very unfortunate, too, that the votes of all 
the judges of the court should, on every single question, 
correspond exactly with what were understood to be the 
wishes of their respective parties, and that the votes of 
some members of the court on different questions should 
not be, on principle, entirely consistent. Twenty-five years 
ago such a thing never would have been ; and in earlier 
times no judge of any United States Court could have 
been found to lend himself to such a scheme of executive 
and military usurpation as did Judge Durell in Louisiana. 
It was the natural and certain result of a system which 
made parties such as they have been, that judges appoint- 
ed under the system should have been at times corrupt 
men. The wonder is that we have not had many more of 
them, even with the tenure during good behavior. That 



[JRITIES FOR GETTING THE BEST SERVICE. l?fl 

the Btandard of judicial action has been kept as high as it 
has been ia very clearly due only to that tenure. 

In the army and navy we had precisely the same expe- 
rience. We cannot forget, of course, that nearly all the 
Southern men, in both the army and navy, at the opening 
of the Rebellion, left the service of the Government. North- 
ern men would have done the same thing under the sane; 
circumstances. The men in the Southern army believed 
themselves to be doing their duty. The education of a 
life could not fail to have its effect. AVe must throw this 
anomalous case out of our consideration, in drawing our 
general conclusions as to the mere working of government 
machinery. And aside from this, dow T n to the opening of 
the War of the Rebellion, the officers of the army and navy 
were men whose official conduct was utterly pure. And 
so it happens, too, that here we find the tenure during 
good behavior. 

And at last, when party got its enormous growth and 
its enormous strength, we find that its influence corrupted 
even officers of the army and navy. The party men con- 
trolled and influenced the executive action and the action 
of the War and Navy Departments. If an able and upright 
officer balked the schemes of thieving contractors, he was 
speedily removed to some very harmless sphere of duty. 
Cotton expeditions were more important than winning cam- 
paigns. Army officers found themselves dependent on the 
powerful party men for their professional advancement. Of 
course, it was a possible thing to find in the United States 
army men who could be corrupted by the use of money 
and influence. Army officers as well as judges of the 
courts, in later days, in single instances, yielded to the im- 
mense pressure brought on them by party men. Such 
corruption as existed in the army and navy was caused by 



180 A TKUE REPUBLIC. 

the corrupt use of party power. That this corruption was 
not greater, was due to the high moral tone prevailing in 
the service, and this moral tone was due to the fact that 
officers in the army and navy held their commissions dur- 
ing good behavior. 

But, it may be said, these are instances only of execu- 
tive and judicial officers, and no general conclusions can be 
drawn from those special instances. Especially, it may be 
said that English experience and our own experience as to 
the judiciary cannot give us any conclusions on which we 
can safely rest as to legislators. It may be argued that 
there is a great difference between the position of the 
judge and that of the legislator. 

So there is. But where is the difference, in this point ? 
The judge interprets the law; the legislator makes it. 
The judge says what the law is ; the legislator says what it 
shall be. The judge hears and decides between two parties 
or a limited number of parties ; the legislator hears and 
decides for all the people. The judge hears counsel in 
court; the legislator hears all men in all places. Both 
judge and legislator have great power, the use of which, 
in one way rather than another, will work great pecuniary 
gain or loss to individuals. The honor of both can be 
sold; the power of both has been sold. And they have 
both been sold for money. And of the two, decrees of 
courts are more marketable than votes in a legislature. To 
buy a decree, you need pay only one man ; to make votes 
of any value, you must buy many. And such has been 
our experience. The courts in New York, in 1870, were 
more shamelessly corrupt than our legislatures have ever 
been. The ways of making money and of giving bribes 
are the same now that they have been for centuries. In- 
junctions in the State of New York were as valuable for a 



SECURITIES FOR GETTING THE BEST SERVICE. 1*1 

stock speculation in 1845 as in 1870. Receiverships would 
have boon just as useful then as now for the purpos 
raining a rival or carrying a corporate election. It was 
not that judges' orders had no money value prior to the 
year 1846 in the State of New York. But they were nev- 
er sold. As soon, however, as judges had to sit in politi- 
cal conventions when they should have been on the bench; 
as soon as they gave their time to manufacturing voters 
instead of hearing causes; as soon as they began to dis- 
charge thieves from prison instead of sentencing them ; as 
soon as they had to study lists of repeaters instead of 
Blackstone and Kent ; when, instead of confining their at- 
tention to the faithful discharge of their duties, they had 
to assist in working the ordinary party machinery and to 
help pay the ordinary party expenses, then they found it 
necessary to sell decrees for money, and they sold them. 

But as to legislators, too, we have the actual experi- 
ments to end any doubts we may have. 

Corruption, in its worst form, most men agree, disap- 
peared from the English Parliament about the beginning 
of this century. Its disappearance was not caused by the 
extension of the suffrage, for no such extension had then 
been had. How did it come ? 

The system of rotten boroughs is gone. It deserved to 
go. It was full of the greatest abuses. But is there a 
possibility that it had precisely one good point i 

In the bitter party struggles that continued for so many 
years in the House of Commons, it became necessary for 
both parties to have strong men to fight the Parliamen- 
tary battles. Able men could do good service and gain 
renown in Parliament. A Parliamentary career began to 
have great attractions for able and eloquent men. As 
these men made themselves useful to their respective par- 



182 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

ties, and as they gained experience, and consequently pow- 
er, it became more and more important to their parties to 
keep them in Parliament year after year. And the hold- 
ers of large landed estates, on either side, at all times had 
in their control a large number of boroughs from which 
they could return to Parliament any one whom they might 
wish. So it came, that the rotten borough system was 
made the means of keeping in Parliament many able men, 
and some very great men, for so long as they might wish 
to hold their seats. Among these men who thus held 
seats in Parliament were nearly all the statesmen who 
have done England the greatest service. Chatham, Burke, 
Pitt, and Fox all came into Parliament from rotten bor- 
oughs. So it was, too, with nearly all of the men whose 
names are brightest in later English Parliamentary histo- 
ry. And in fact there was in the English Parliament a 
larger proportion of able and honest men in the latter 
part of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the 
nineteenth, when England was full of rotten boroughs, 
than in the seventeenth century or at the present day, at 
both which times the representation in Parliament has 
been comparatively fair and equal. 

These men held their seats nominally for seven years, 
but really and substantially for life, or as long as they 
chose to keep them. They had everything they wished ; 
they could keep everything they had. They had no need 
of managing party election machinery ; they had not to 
court the interests of rich corporations. They had the 
possibility, by wise and just legislation, of gaining fame, 
the only thing they had to gain. By unwise or unjust 
legislation they could lose their honorable reputations, the 
only thing they had to lose. The result was that these 
men, though often full of class prejudices, were, and re- 



SECURITIES FOB GETTING THE BEST SERVICE. 188 

mained, always men of honor, and, in matters where their 
class prejudices and the bitterness of party contest did 
not Mind them, they were wise legislators. 

rraption disappeared from the English House of 
Commons, not because men became suddenly more virtu- 
ous, nor because there was less money in the world, nor be- 
cause votes in Parliament became less valuable, nor through 
fear of punishment, but, in the main, because the men who 
led the House of Commons, and made public opinion in 
and out of it, were practically independent in their tenure 
of their scats. 

This was the real cause that enabled the greatest Eng- 
lish statesmen to do England their best service. Mark the 
change that has come. "Whereas, fifty years ago, there 
were in the English House of Commons many statesmen 
who did not depend for holding their seats on carrying 
the next election, who did what they believed the best in- 
terests of the people demanded, without fear or favor of 
any human being, now the members of the House of Com- 
mons are fast becoming the slaves of party, as thoroughly 
as they have ever been in this country. Statesmen have 
given way to party mountebanks. From Burke to Bea- 
consfield — could there be a more stupendous fall ? 

The most brilliant eloquence in English history, their 
wisest legislation of the last hundred years — free-trade, rev- 
enue reform, the extension of the suffrage, nearly every 
government measure that has helped make England's pres- 
ent greatness — has come from the statesmen who held their 
seats from rotten boroughs. The traditions and manners 
of Pitt and Burke and Fox still hang around Westminster 
Hall. Party rule, under frequent elections, will have in 
England, sooner or later, its legitimate results. It lias not 
yet brought back the grossest forms of moneyed corrup- 



184 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

tion. Bat the present purity of English legislative halls, 
such as it is, is a legacy from the Golden Age of rotten 
boroughs. 

The argument thus far has shown incidentally that at 
least there are some evil results coming from the term 
system, as we have had it established under our general 
Government. This term system is the front and founda- 
tion and superstructure of our present form of govern- 
ment. I propose, at the risk of some repetition, to ex- 
amine more specially the reason for its adoption and its 
working. 

The one purpose that is supposed to be accomplished 
by this system of short terms of office is, that the people 
thereby keep the complete control of their public officials, 
and that any abuse or misuse by these officials of their 
power is thereby made impossible. 

There ran through all the discussions in the Conven- 
tions — both the Constitutional Convention which framed 
the Constitution, and the State Conventions that adopted 
it — a thorough distrust of the honesty of the men who 
should hold public office under the new national Govern- 
ment. This Constitutional Convention had among its mem- 
bers Washington, Hamilton, Madison, Franklin, the Mor- 
rises, and Luther Martin. The members were generally 
men of the same stamp with those just named. Jefferson 
called them " an assembly of demigods." These men were 
selected by an honest people, for a great w ? ork, in a time 
of great danger, when the best men are, from mere popu- 
lar instinct, placed in high positions of trust. It was just 
as true then as now, that knaves are always suspicious, and 
honest men are seldom so. And yet somehow it came, 
that the members of these Conventions, State and national, 
really believed that the officials and legislators under this 



SECURITIES FOR GETTING THE BEST SERVICE. 185 

new general government would be a different kind of men 
from the officials and legislators under the State govern- 
ments. It was feared that they would in some way com- 
bine to destroy the liberties of the people. Somehow or 
other, it was imagined that any new government, outside 
of and above the State governments, was to be a monstrous 
thing, and its officials were to be monstrous beings, not 
amenable to the ordinary laws of human nature. This is 
no exaggeration. Mr. Gerry, in the Constitutional Conven- 
tion, made a motion " that the national executive be ap- 
pointed by the State executives." And he argued in sup- 
port of the motion, that he " supposed that in the national 
Legislature there will be a great number of bad men of vari- 
ous descriptions. These will make a wrong appointment ; 
besides, an executive thus appointed will have his partial- 
ity in favor of those who appointed him — that this will not 
be the case by the effect of my motion, and the executive 
will by this means be independent of the national Legislat- 
ure." Mr. Randolph opposed the motion, and argued, " An 
executive thus appointed will court the officers of his ap- 
pointment, and will relax him in the duties of commander 
of the militia."* Even Hamilton said,f " Take mankind 
as they are, and what arc they governed by ? Their pas- 
sions. There may be in every government a few choice 
spirits who may act from more worthy motives. One 
great error is, that we suppose mankind more honest than 
they are. Our prevailing passions are ambition and inter- 
est ; and it will ever be the duty of a wise government to 
avail itself of those passions, in order to make them sub- 
servient to the public good ; for these ever induce us to 
action." 

* Yates's " Minutes." \ Elliot's " Debates," vol. i. p. 43Gt 



186 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

Now, which is the more thorough security against the 
dishonesty of a servant, public or private — to discharge him 
for present misconduct at the end of four years, or to-day ? 
As a security against dishonesty, or inefficiency, or any 
misuse of trust, the term system utterly fails, in principle 
and practice. The machinery should be so arranged, as it 
easily can be, that an officer shall be discharged now, not 
two years from now, for misconduct of any kind which 
makes him an unfit public servant. And can anything 
other than this be an approach to a real safeguard ? 

The purpose of having officers hold for a term of years 
is this, to make those terms very short, and thus to have 
the officer come up for a re-election at short intervals — at 
intervals so short as to give the people, indirectly and in 
effect, the power of removing him at any time. There was 
also the idea, that in a short term a public officer would 
not have the time to accomplish any great harm by any 
abuse of his power. And, of course, the only honest pur- 
pose which this term system could serve was to remove 
the officer at the end of the short term, only if he deserved 
removal, and to continue him in his office if his work had 
been well done. That being the end, then, why not frame 
the system so as to reach the end directly and at once, 
and not indirectly in the remote future ? Why not give to 
some one man or body of men the power of removing the 
officer at the time for misconduct or unsatisfactory work 
of any kind, and let him continue in office so long as his 
work is good? That is the way we do with private ser- 
vants. Why should we not do so with public servants ? 

Moreover, the whole tendency of the term system is to 
make it as certain as anything can be, that we shall never 
hold any one official responsible for any one act. It goes 
far to destroy all official responsibility. If an officer mis- 



SECURITIES FOR GETTING THE BEST SERVICE. 187 

behaves, men do nothing at the time. They think it will 

» much easier to drop the officer at the end of his 
term than to punish him now. They therefore wait for 
the end of his term. But when the end of the term comes, 
they forget what any one man lias done or left undone. 
Then comes the contest between two great parties, over 
great moral questions. Then it is a matter of " platforms " 
and party k> records." 

The expectation, too, was that under the term system the 
people would have it in their power, if they should wish, 
to make the removal. But that has not been the result. 
The result under the term system has been the creation 
of this immense party machinery. The people have not, 
in practice, been able to remove. The power has been 
taken out of their hands by party. 

It might be said that we should avoid some of the evils 
of the system if we made the terms longer. But the only 
purpose of having the term at all is to have it short, so 
that the people can in effect remove the officer at any 
time, or very soon. The point I urge against the short 
term of one year is that it is not short enough, that the 
whole term system is vicious, that no official should have 
a right to remain in his office for a day, after he fails to 
do his work well. The term of ten or twenty years is 
simply so much worse than the term of one year. When 
men say the term should be lengthened, as many men 
do, it shows only that they are thoroughly conscious 
that there is something rotten in the system as we now 
have it. 

But any system of long terms would have its peculiar 
disadvantage. 

Xapoleon commanded the armies of France at the age 
of twenty-seven. Suppose some young man shows the 



188 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

genius for affairs of State that Napoleon showed for war, 
or only very great talent, and that he has an opportunity 
to enter the national Legislature at the age of thirty years. 
Suppose the term for which he was to hold were fifteen 
years, the longest term of which there would ever be any 
reasonable probability. At the age of forty-five his term 
would end, and he would be a man, certainly (if he were 
honest), without a fortune, and probably without even a 
very moderate competence, with no profession or occupa- 
tion, at a time of life too late to learn one, possibly with 
a family dependent on his salary for their daily support. 
The best men will not take such risks. And it is this 
very class of men, the men who might display so great 
abilities as to be selected for public station at an early 
age, who are, of all men, the ones who would render the 
State the greatest service ; for they would not only have 
greater abilities, but an earlier experience, and a longer 
possible time of service. Such were Pitt and Hamilton — 
nearly all the great men the world has ever known, the 
men who make or save a nation. 

It is as a machinery for holding officials " responsible," 
that the term system has its only value. But, in effect, 
the term system is a system under which officers are " ir- 
responsible" almost as thoroughly as under any hereditary 
monarchy. The hereditary king holds his power for his 
life ; and meantime, even if his use of that power is most 
unwise and disastrous, it cannot be taken from him. The 
President of the United States holds his power for four 
years; and meantime, even if his use of that power is most 
unwise and disastrous (so long as it be honest), it cannot 
be taken from him. It is true, if the President is guilty 
of a crime, he will perhaps be removed by impeachment. 
So, too, if the king commits a crime, or many crimes, he 



SECURITIES FOR GETTING THE BEST SERVICE. 189 

will perhaps be removed by a revolution. But the one 
is, in effect, as thoroughly an "irresponsible' 1 ruler as the 

other. The only difference is this: With our President 
the time during- which he is an "irresponsible" ruler is 
fixed, and certainly short, instead of being unfixed, and 

possibly long. 1) ut why should a man be " irresponsible " 
for even four years ] 

In theory the term system is unsound. In practice it 
has been found most ruinous. It has destroyed the re- 
sponsibility of public officials; it lias, as far as any system 
could so do, taken from the people the control of tlieir 
public servants. It lias been tried, and it lias failed. 

Here have been, then, experiments of all kinds, with 
public servants of all kinds, with results of all kinds. 
What are the results of these experiments? 

The experiment of having men " irresponsible " for the 
use of their power, that is, giving men power that cannot 
be taken from them, has been tried, thoroughly tried, and 
has always failed. Giving them irresponsible power for 
life has been tried, with hereditary kings, under different 
names and forms, and that has always failed. Giving men 
irresponsible power for a term of years has been tried 
many times, in many countries, and that has always failed. 
The experiment of making men " responsible " for the nse 
of their power — that is, of having them hold their power 
only so long as they use it well, and taking it from them 
instantly (not at the end of one or two years) so soon as 
they use it ill — has been often tried, and it has never failed. 
It has been tried with judicial officers, with executive offi- 
cers, and with legislative officers — always with the one 
unvarying result. 

Now what is the reason of it? For a reason there 
must be. 



190 A TKUE BEPUBLIC. 

Every man lives for the future. If for his future ad- 
vancement he depends on a king, he serves the king ; if 
for his future advancement he depends on party, he serves 
party ; if for his future advancement he depends only on 
doing his work well, he will do his work well. English 
judges were dependent on kings — they sold their official 
action for kingly favor, and for money. American judges 
and legislators were dependent on party — they sold their 
official action for party favor, and for money. When 
judges and legislators have been free, have depended, for 
their fame and future, only on being honest, they have 
been honest. 

How wonderful it is ! With our private servants, too, 
we find, if we keep them in our service only so long as 
they serve us well and honestly, they serve us well and 
honestly. It is no miracle, nothing but a law of human 
nature. And the wonderful thing of all is, that this law 
of human nature governs public officials as well as human 
beings. 

How was it that for sixty years we had in the courts 
of New York utter purity, until we tried the term system, 
and that then, under the term system, we had as scandalous 
corruption as had ever disgraced the history of any civil- 
ized nation? The man who is keen enough to find any 
other reason for this phenomenon than the term system 
itself will make himself famous by his astuteness. 

One other question he will then do well to answer. It 
being conceded, as it will be, that the public service has 
wonderful charms for all men who have any gifts fitting 
them for it, and it being certain that if we will only re- 
ward our public servants as w r e do men in the other em- 
ployments of life, we can have the best men in the coun- 
try to do our work, if by the abolition of the terra system 



SECURITIES FOR GETTING THE BEST SERVICE. 191 

we should secure in our public servants independence, and, 
therefore, honesty, what more could possibly be had, or 
what more could possibly be wished 1 

This is no mystery. All that is needed is that we 
should apply to matters of government the same common- 

se rules that we use in all our other affairs. 

So far as to securing honest work — that is, the best 
work that a man knows how to give. 

How is it, then, as to securing for our public servants 
training, knowledge, experience : How are we to secure 
that they shall know how to give us the best work? 

Here is, as it seems to me, one of the most important 
points of this whole examination. 

And here is the great fault of the term system. It 
destroys, to a certainty, the possibility of our public ser- 
vants gaining any thorough training for their official work. 

It will be wise to here examine shortly the ideas of the 
men who gave us the system, and their purposes. 

The idea of the colonists, when the Constitution was 
framed, was that any one could be a legislator. Every 
man voted in the town -meeting- and was a legislator. 
Nearly every man, too, who voted in the town -meeting 
occasionally went to the State Assembly or Senate for one 
or two years, and was a legislator there. And the colo- 
nists imagined that these same men could, well enough, go 
to the national Congress, and be legislators there. The 
only danger, then, to be guarded against was this, that 
these plain farmers and honest merchants, who were up- 
right, simple beings at home, should not be converted into 
Julius Ciesars when they reached the seat of the nation- 
al Government. And to the majority of the men of the 
time it seemed the sure and only way to protect them- 
selves against that danger, to give to all officials only a 



192 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

short term of office in which they could have any oppor- 
tunity to carry out their de3igns of usurpation. This may 
seem like an attempt at a humorous description of those 
men in a past age. It is nothing of the kind. Any one 
who will carefully read the debates in the various State 
Conventions which met to consider the adoption of the 
Constitution will find those debates full of precisely the 
fear here mentioned. 

It was assumed that usurpation and tyranny were the 
only dangers, and that the system of short terms of office 
was the only safeguard. 

The idea our ancestors had as to the qualifications re- 
quired in Government officials was, in the very early times, 
not very far from accurate. In the colonial days, at least 
in New England, the laws of property were taken bodily 
from the English common law. In fact there was very 
little property to need a law of any kind ; and the legis- 
lation of the period was principally confined to the fixing 
of the number of lashes which should be the penalty for 
using profane language on the Lord's-day, or like matters, 
which needed no very deep knowledge of the great prin- 
ciples of jurisprudence. The people were poor ; their re- 
lations with one another and with the rest of the world 
were simple. The forests were to be cleared, houses were 
to be built, the Indians were to be fought, after the ir- 
regular methods of frontiersmen. The times before the 
Revolutionary period had never called for statesmen. Even 
w T hen the Constitution was formed, the body of the peo- 
ple did not thoroughly understand that they then needed 
statesmen, or that the later periods of the national life and 
growth would need statesmen. There was less knowledge 
then than now. Professions and occupations were fewer, 
had not so many subdivisions. In the rural districts ev- 



SECURITIES FOB GETTING THE BEST SERVICE. 198 

ery man could do everything. The lawyer tilled bia farm 
in the hours between the preparation of his briefs, or, 
more truly, tried causes in the intervals of his agricultural 

pursuits. That there was such a thing as a science of 
government, was a fact that those men forgot, or, rather, 
that they had never known or dreamed. The machinery 
for the composition of the national Legislature was pre- 
cisely what had always been used for the composition of 
the State Legislatures. That these legislators should be 
chosen by the people, was a thing assumed by all. And 
that they should be kept dependent on the people, by be- 
ing elected only for short terms, was agreed by all. 

Even then, in the first years of the nation, the legislation 
in Congress needed the wisest men in the country. There 
was the heavy debt to be funded or otherwise arranged. 
Revenue was to be raised. Courts were to be organized. 
The whole internal machinery of a new government was 
to be constructed. The whole scheme of the nation's for- 
eign policy was to be decided. Wise men were needed to 
deal with great questions. And it was necessary, too, that 
the men who carried on the Government should give time 
and careful thought to their labors. 

But if the best men in the country were then needed, 
and if it was then necessary that statesmen should give 
time and thought to the nation's affairs, how is it now ? 
To manage well a railroad of a hundred miles requires the 
experience of years. Theology, medicine, law, need the 
labors of a lifetime to begin to learn them. Science is al- 
most newly created in a decade, and its teachers must be 
its most zealous students, or they soon become only its land- 
marks. A blacksmith or a carpenter takes years to learn 
his trade, as it is called, before he is trusted to do the com- 
monest bits of work. And he is ever inventing new ma- 





194 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

chinery, new ways of doing new things ; he is always learn- 
ing. There is no ordinary profession or occupation, that 
does not call for study and training before a man is allow- 
ed to practice it, and in which a man does not need the 
experience of a whole life. But our men of public affairs 
we select, in the large majority of instances, without any 
reference to the point of whether they have or have not, 
for the work they are to do, either experience or knowl- 
edge. 

The science of legislation, or rather the basis upon which 
a science of legislation is yet to be built, is wider now 
than ever. What is there that a law -maker would not 
need at times to know? He has to deal with matters of 
finance, commerce, manufactures, crime, pauperism, the re- 
lations of capital and labor, the control of great corpora- 
tions, armies and navies, harbors, railroads, and canals. On 
all these matters he will need knowledge. That knowl- 
edge he can perhaps get from other men who have it. 
But there is a special science of his own profession, which 
he has yet to make for himself, and that is the science of 
the actual working of laws. Some men have an idea that 
you can make a nation rich, good, or wise, by a statute. 
Perhaps you can. It is certain you can by statutes greatly 
help or hinder a nation in reaching those results. But by 
what statutes? Simple resolutions will not be enough. 
One of the great books of the world is written on the 
"Spirit of Laws." But there is yet to be learned the 
science of laws, which will concern itself, not with vague 
theories, but with the actual results upon the life and 
health of nations, which particular measures of legislation 
are, by actual experiment, ascertained to have. And it is 
this science which we must give our public servants an 
opportunity to learn — rather to create. The days of im- 



OURITIES FOB GETTING THE BEST SERVICE, L96 

aginative theorizing arc over. In every other department 
of human thought and action we know that men must In- 
vestigate and experiment. The chemist no longer satisfies 

himself with mere words about essences and relations. 
He must weigh and measure, learn what these substances 
in nature are, and liow r they work on one another. The 
student in medical science will now content himself with 
no silly saw, such as "Like cures like," but will find by 
actual experiment " what cures what." Can it be other- 
wise with the men who arc to gain any knowledge of the 
science of government ? To expect that a man should be 
able to do good work in .the Government service without 
that especial training which can only be had by the study 
and experience of a life — that he can be a legislator, because 
he is a banker or a lawyer, because he has read some books 
on finance, or constitutional law, or on political economy — 
is as absurd as to suppose that a man could build and nav- 
igate a war -steamer because he know T s something about 
iron and coal mines. To interpret the laws as they are, 
after they are made, requires a life training. To make our 
laws as they should be, we take men without any training 
at all, and we dismiss them from the public service before 
they can gain even a little experience. 

Now, how are we to secure that our public servants shall 
gain this training for the special work of their offices, 
which it is absolutely necessary for them to have ? 

In the first place, as has been argued before, public ser- 
vants must have duties of only one class. Especially the 
men in the executive administration should have nothing 
to do with general legislation ; and the men who have to 
do with the general legislation — the deliberating and de- 
ciding as to the policy of all departments of the Govern- 
ment — should not meddle with the details of administration 



196 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

of any one department. This is a principle so rudimen- 
tary, so thoroughly in accord with the experience of all 
men, that argument would seem needless. The great vice 
of the present English Government system is the neglect 
of administration by the heads of departments, and the 
incessant meddling with details of administration by the 
Legislature. 

Assuming, then, that each public servant is to have only 
duties of one class, clearly the system should be so framed 
as to give the official every possible inducement to give 
his whole time and thought to the work of his office, and 
to nothing else. 

This term system gives every inducement to every pub- 
lic official to give his time and his best efforts to the car- 
rying of elections. We have tried it thoroughly. That is 
the one result it has had. It has converted this great 
army of public officers into one great election machinery. 
We make it an impossibility for them to get training; we 
make it a certainty that they will never get it. 

Was there ever any system, devised for any purpose, so 
ingeniously designed to defeat its own ends ? 

Even yet we have not reached the vital defect. 

If we ever wish to get good work from our officials or 
have them become the masters of their professions, we must 
so frame our system that every man in the Government 
service, from the top to the bottom, will have everything 
to gain from simply doing the work of his office well — 
everything to lose from simply doing the work of his office 
ill. Each one of them must have before his eyes the pos- 
sibility of a cai^eer for life in this Government service, with 
the possibility of gaining the greatest prizes, the highest 
positions, in that Government service, if he there shows 
himself the best man. 



SECURITIES FOB GETTING THE BEST SERVICE. i'.»7 
Lord Bacon Bays,"To take a soldier without ambition 

is to pull off his spurs. 1 ' That is precisely what we do 
with all our public servants. We say to them: " [f yon 
enter our service, leave hope and ambition behind you. 
Serve some other master. Give your time and thought and 
labor to party, and not to us. Whether you do our work 
well or ill, it will give you no claim upon us. At the end 
of four years, if the party men have found you useful, they 
may give you another four years' pay from our Treasury. 
But we promise you nothing. Win your spurs elsewhere, 
not here. 

Every honest trade, or business, or profession gives to 
honest men who do honest work the possibility of a career 
for life. We must put our public servants on that same 
footing, if we ever hope to have from them good work, or 
have the Government service anything other than it now 
is — a disgrace to the nation. 

This clearing out of all offices, or of any one office, at 
the end of four years, or of one year, or for any cause oth- 
er than for inefficient service, is most disastrous. The ser- 
vice must have permanence. Men must have the chance, 
which they have in other professions, of rising to the very 
highest positions, as the reward of great w T ork. The whole 
point of all the discussions on Civil Service Reform is, 
that you must have this permanence in the service for the 
subordinates. But the plan is, as usually stated, that this 
permanence is to be for the subordinates only, and the 
heads of departments must still come in and go out on the 
old term system. That is most unwise. Do we say to 
men in our army, " Promotion you may have up to a cer- 
tain point, but our general-in-chief we shall always select 
from the clergy V The highest plaees of all in the service 
must be the prizes open to all men in the service. In that 



198 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

way only can you spur men to the highest exertions. In 
no other way have men ever been able to get any other 
than poor work. If we have our departments full of clerks 
who can never be anything but clerks, we shall never have 
anything but the work of clerks, mere routine hack-work 
from men who are devoid of ambition. And should the 
men in the highest places in Government be the only ones 
devoid of knowledge and training ? 

If, then, the argument thus far be sound, if we assume 
that officers should hold their offices during good behavior, 
as the phrase goes, what shall we call good behavior ? 

The Constitution provided in terms that the President 
should be removed on " conviction of treason, bribery, or 
other high crimes or misdemeanors." By implication, as 
lawyers will agree, this takes away the power of removal 
for mere incompetency. And what was made by the Con- 
stitution the express law as to the President, has been uni- 
formly the practice as to other officials. The idea and the 
practice among our public civil officials has been, that any 
officer, before his office is taken from him, must be con- 
victed of some scandalous crime, on a trial, such as crimi- 
nals have in a criminal court. 

This idea comes from the old principle under which of- 
fices are held to be property. In England, in law, offices 
were property, which could be acquired by descent. With 
us, in practice, offices have been property, which could be 
acquired by purchase. The English theory and the Amer- 
ican practice can hardly be held to be the sound principle 
for an efficient government service. No argument will be 
wasted to the point that these public offices belong only to 
the people, that they are trusts to be given and taken away 
with a view only to the people's interests, and that they 
are in no sense property ; that the officer has no right 



SECURITIES FOB GETTING THE BEST SERVICE. 199 

whatever, of any kind, in the mere holding of the office. 
lie is to hold it so long only as the people's interests are 
best served by having him hold it. 

Any public officer, then, should be removed the instant 
he fails, for any reason whatever, to do his work in the 
most perfeel manner. Hold him "responsible," as men 
are elsewhere held responsible, not for good intention- (let 
them be used for their proper paving purposes), but for 
accomplishing results. Add to the list of crimes, for 
which public officials may be removed, the crime of fail- 
ure. Can we have any efficient work under any other 
•m I 

One point farther. We must so arrange our system as 
to have thorough supervision of every official by some one 
man or body of men, whose especial duty it shall be to 
make that supervision, and who shall be held responsible 
for making it. Nearly every breach of trust in private 
life comes from the lack of proper supervision, from leav- 
ing large amounts of money or property in men's hands 
for long periods, with no examination by other men. The 
temptation is too strong. If men were sure that any mis- 
use by them of property intrusted to their care would be 
surely and quickly found out, such misuse would almost 
never happen. So it is with public trusts. And how is 
it possible to have thorough supervision, with officials who 
shift from one day to another, and who are driven to give 
their time to other affairs ? 

The points to be examined in this chapter were stated 
to be, how we are to secure that our public servants shall — 

1. Do the best work within their knowledge. 

2. Have the knowledge how to do the best work. 

And these points are the utmost that we need to secure, 
or that we can secure under any plan of government. 



200 



A TKUE KEPUBLIC. 



If this argument has any soundness at all, it is clear that 
neither of these points can be secured under the system of 
terms of years. 

Let us go a step farther. 

As far as the tenure of office is concerned, there are 
only three systems to be considered : 

1. The holding for the uncertain term of life. 

2. The holding for the certain term of years. 

3. The holding so long as the work in the office is well 
done. 

Which of these, as a system, is the most reasonable ? 

Common sense and experience both teach us, that there 
should be in every government machinery, as to every sin- 
gle office, high or low, executive or legislative, some pro- 
vision for the removal of the officer from his office. Then 
the only remaining practical question is, whether the mere 
time of this removal shall be decided by death, by the 
movements of the heavenly bodies, or by the conduct of 
the officer. 

Experience shows — 

1. That the system of having officers hold so long as 
they do good service, makes it as nearly certain, as any 
system can, that we shall have good service. 

2. That the system of having officers hold until death, 
makes it entirely uncertain whether we shall have good 
or bad service. 

3. That the astronomical system makes it utterly certain 
that we shall have a bad service. 

We come to another point. 

In late years we have had in our government affairs a 
vast deal of corruption. And no one can estimate too 
highly the injuries that it has done the people. 

But as far as the mere moneyed interests of the peo- 



SECURITIES FOR GETTING THE BEST SERVICE. 201 

pie at large arc concerned, what we have Buffered from in 
our public servants has been not so much their corruption 
as their ignorance, their lack of training for their special 
work. The corruption we Lave among our Govern menl 

officials generally concerns the moneyed interests of pri- 
vate individuals and corporations. Bad enough it is. Bui 
as to matters that concern the large general interests of 
the whole people, our legislators and other public officials 
have ordinarily good intentions. But they do not know 
what the interests of the people really demand. If they 
did, they would gladly do what is right and wise. Of 
course they must work for their party. We compel them 
to that. But, in the few and short intervals of time when 
they are not manipulating elections, they would really wish 
to give us some good legislation and good administration, 
if they only knew how to do it. They are often really 
able men. They may be good lawyers, or may know well 
some business that they have followed before they entered 
the Government service ; but they have no especial train- 
ing or knowledge for the work they are to do there, and 
that training and knowledge we make it impossible for 
them to get. 

But whatever may be the real dangers under our sys- 
tem of government, the great fear of the body of our peo- 
ple is the fear of combinations among public officials, for 
the purposes of tyranny or corruption. 

Certainly we have not avoided that evil under our pres- 
ent system. No more corrupt or more powerful combina- 
tions could be found than our present party combinations. 

But, as far as concerns any wilful misuse by public ser- 
vants, for any motive, of the power in their hands, the 
main safeguard of the people always must lie in the charac- 
ter of the men who are selected to be our public servants. 

9* 



202 



A TRUE REPUBLIC. 



If we get in the public service our best men, men who 
have been tried and proved, men who have been through 
life faithful to all the trusts they have ever held, and if we 
then leave them free to learn their work and to do it as 
well as they know how, we can rest content that no great 
evil will befall the State. We have tried everything as a 
protection against misconduct in office. And what is 
there that we have found to be of any use ? We have had 
statutes for the punishment of bribery and corruption, and 
the system of short terms. The two together have been 
of no avail. We have tried the system of parties. That 
has given us simply a powerful tyranny. 

Yet there have been times in the history of the English 
House of Commons when its members were above any 
suspicion of dishonesty. Would any one have ventured 
to offer Burke or Pitt a thousand guineas for pressing a 
local bill in Parliament? Imagine a man proposing to 
Hamilton, or John Adams, or Mr. Calhoun, or Mr. Webster 
to pay stock certificates or bank-notes for votes in Con- 
gress ! With men like those in the Legislature, we were 
as safe against bribery and corruption as with John Mar- 
shall on the bench. Does any one believe that men of 
that stamp, if we could secure them in the public service, 
would, so soon as ever they set foot in legislative halls, 
become thieves, and belie the history of their whole lives ? 

We know that that cannot be. Take the great names 
that we have had in our judicial history — Marshall, Kent, 
Curtis, Shaw, and Story — was it any fear of punishment 
or of removal from office, that made those men faithful to 
their public trusts ? 

Each one of those men knew that he needed to look to 
no party caucus, to no powerful men, for his continuance 
in office. He could hold his place to the end of his life, 



SECURITIES FOB GETTING THE BEST SERVICE. 208 

so he was only honest. He knew that bo long as he gave 

able and upright decisions he would keep the respect and 
confidence of all men. lie knew (if he ever thought of 
the point) that if lie gave dishonest decisions, there would 
be, in sober fact, the least chance in the world of an im- 
peachment or punishment. But he knew, too, that sus- 
picion would be certain, and that his good name would be 
as certainly ruined by suspicion as by proof and conviction 
of all the crimes on the statute-book in all the courts of 
the land. But no one of those men carefully weighed in 
his mind the point how far he could be corrupt, and yet 
escape an impeachment, or how much favor he could show 
to this or that suitor, and still save his reputation. 

There are men in the world who can be trusted. 

The natural inclination of any upright man, who has 
earned the confidence of his fellow r -men, is to do right and 
justice. And to secure honesty in our public servants, 
that is the main point which we must look to, the securing 
for the Government service our best men. 

To secure that, as has been seen, we must destroy party ; 
for that alone it is that keeps the best men out of our 
public service. 

And to reach that end, or either of the ends here urged 
as desirable, w T e must abolish the term system. 

But it may be that, as to particular departments of the 
Government, there are special reasons why the conclusions 
here reached are unsound. There are, too, some points, 
not of fundamental importance, relating to the constitution 
and operation of those departments, which seem to me to 
deserve examination. 

These matters will next be considered. 



204 A TKUE REPUBLIC. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE JUDICIARY. 

Having considered some general principles as to the 
selection and the tenure of all officials under Government, 
we have then to consider such special points as concern 
officers in the different branches of the service. 

And first, what are the points that particularly concern 
the judges, the officers who have to do with the adminis- 
tration of justice ? 

The argument thus far shows, if it shows anything, that 
judges, of all men, should hold their offices during good 
behavior. If they are to have fear or favor of no men, 
they must be independent of all men, except that they 
must be punishable for misconduct. 

Many men agree to that. But the men who would con- 
cede that point generally think that judges should not be 
chosen by popular election. 

If parties and party power were destroyed, my belief is 
that our judges would be best elected by popular vote, un- 
der the same methods used for the election of a chief ex- 
ecutive and members of the Legislature, instead of being 
appointed. I do not regard the point as a very material 
one — if they have the tenure during good behavior. We 
should in either w r ay be very sure of good men. 

But with party removed, I should feel more certain of 
getting the best men on a popular vote, than under any 
system of appointment. 

It may be said that the ordinary men in the community 



THE JUDICIARY, 2<>:> 

cannot jiuli^o of the qualifications of a judge. That is 
true. But the laymen in the people could nol fail to be 
guided by the opinions of members of the legal profession 
as to the qualifications of particular men in that profes- 
sion. Indeed, it is the members of the bar who make the 
reputation in the community of all the men of their own 
profession. The laymen seldom form opinions of their own 
on those matters. They get their opinions, consciously or 
unconsciously, from the lawyers. If we had, in form, a 
popular election of judges, it would be, in substance, an 
election by the bar, having, however, always, in the com- 
mon sense of the people at large, a complete security 
against any spirit of clique which might grow up among 
the lawyers themselves. 

Moreover, the judges on the bench have to pass on the 
acts of the Legislature and of executive officials. It seems 
wise, under these circumstances, that they should not have 
the possibility of reward or advancement at the hands of 
either the Legislature or the Chief Executive. Have them 
subject to supervision and removal at the hands of the 
Legislature, as they have always been. But, aside from 
that, have judges so placed that they depend for further 
advancement on their reputation among the citizens at 
large. 

There are, no doubt, faults in our methods, in the ad- 
ministration of justice. But they do not concern the 
main purpose of this examination, and will, therefore, not 
be here considered. 



206 



A TRUE REPUBLIC. 



CHAPTER IX. 



EXECUTIVE ADMINISTRATION. 

We have next to examine the points which especially 
concern the executive administration in our Government. 

It is the experience of all mankind that, in order to 
have anything like vigor or system in executive adminis- 
tration of any kind, it is absolutely essential to have the 
responsibility of one man. That is the special lesson 
which we have from English executive administration. If 
we have the responsibility of many men of a party, we 
have no responsibility at all. We must, then, if we wish 
our executive administration to be harmonious, systematic, 
or efficient, have one man at the head of it all, and hold 
that one man responsible for it all. And we must hold 
him responsible, not for good intentions, but for great re- 
sults — for the perfect working of the entire machinery. 

This same point, too, must run through the whole ser- 
vice ; each man at the head of a department or of a minor 
office must be held responsible for the perfect working of 
that whole department or office. • 

The responsibility, too, of public officers must be a re- 
sponsibility, so far as may be, always to one man. Other- 
wise the responsibility will not be steadily and evenly en- 
forced. 

The responsibility must be, too, so far as may be^ re- 
sponsibility for only one class of work. Otherwise we de- 
stroy the possibility of thorough training; and we make 
it certain that we shall have great confusion. 



EXECUTIVE ADMINISTRATION. 

To sum up this branch of the case, then, if we wiA vigor 
and system in our executive service, we must have through- 
out, from the top to the bottom: 

Responsibility — 

1. Of ouc man ; 

2. To one roan ; 

3. For one work. 

But then comes another point. 

We cannot rightly hold one man responsible for having 
work done by other men, unless we give him the power, 
to select the men under him for their ability, and to re- 
move them for their failure, to do good work. We must 
give every official the appointment and removal of his 
own subordinates. 

Make that the law. Give our Chief Executive any name 
we wish — call him a president or a king, a sultan or a 
head-centre — but hold him responsible for the thorough 
working of the entire executive administration under him. 
Give him, then, as we must if we look for so much at his 
hands, the appointment and removal of all his heads of 
departments. He must hold each one of those heads of 
departments responsible for the thorough working of his 
whole department. Give each head of a department, then, 
the absolute appointment and removal of all heads of sub- 
ordinate offices. And so it should be down to the bottom. 

What is the result that must follow from such a sys- 
tem, and which it has always brought? 

Every official, knowing that he will himself be removed 
if the work to be done by the men under him is not done 
well, will see to it that the work of those men is done well. 
He will be driven to enforce the utmost efficiency and 
honesty from every one of his subordinates. His holding 
his place will depend on what they do, as well as on what 



208 



A TRUE REPUBLIC. 



he does himself. So it will be with every official from the 
top to the bottom of the service. We shall make it a 
matter of vital necessity, as far as any system can so make 
it, that every official will not only do his own work well, 
but will make other men do their work well. Instead of 
giving them all one common interest to carry elections, we 
give them all one common interest to carry wise govern- 
ment measures. Instead of putting them under pressure 
to work for party, we put them under pressure to work for 
the people. 

And, of course, the Chief Executive officer, as well as all 
his subordinates, must be " responsible." Of all men, he 
cannot be exempted from the rules of common sense and 
experience. 

To whom, then, shall the Chief Executive be " responsi- 
ble," and how shall his responsibility be enforced ? 

He must be responsible to the supreme supervising body 
— which we call a Legislature — and his responsibility must 
be enforced by giving them the direct power of removing 
him summarily, without a hearing, if they think the pub- 
lic interests demand it, for any reason which to them may 
seem wise. But for this removal there should be required 
a two-thirds vote.* 

To make a further security, which I do not believe 
would ever be needed or used, we could give to the Legis- 
lature the same power of removal as to all executive offi- 
cials. 



* This two-thirds vote should be, as I think, a two-thirds vote of the 
members of both Houses of the Legislature, sitting, for this purpose, 
in one body. 

I cannot see the wisdom of using in a government, for any one 
purpose, the concurrent action of more than one body of men. It 
makes conflicting wills and divided responsibility. 



EXECUTIVE ADMINISTRATION. 209 

What, then, would be the results of such a change from 

our present system 1 It would be feared by some men 
that it would bring great dangers. 

Let us see what would be the precise changes from our 

present system. They would be these; : 

1. We take from the Chief Executive any voice in the 
appointment and removal of the great number of subordi- 
nate ollieials, which the President now has. 

2. We give to him the power of appointing* and re- 
moving his heads of departments, where he now must have 
the consent of two-thirds of the Senate. 

3. For any misconduct or for any failure on his part to 
give good and satisfactory results, he may himself be at 
once removed. 

4. If not removed for misconduct or inefficiency, he may 
hold office for his life. 

Is it not clear that, under a system so modified, there 
is no danger to be feared from the executive ? He would 
then be more thoroughly under control than he now is. 
As the system is now, there is no power in the Government 
that can remove him for action which may be most dis- 
astrous for the people, so long as he is only honest. There 
may be thousands of contingencies, which no human being 
can possibly foresee, which will make it absolutely vital 
for the nation's interests that the Chief Executive should 
be removed from his office without a day's delay. Can 
there be a doubt, that the power should be lodged some- 
where to remove the man who commands our armies and 
navies if at any particular time he shows himself to be un- 
fit for doing the duties of his office? Did any one ever 
hear of such a thing as insuring efficient work from a man 
who could not be removed from his place instantly, so 
soon as, for any reason, he failed to do his work well ? Do 



210 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

we give a private servant a long trial in court, before we 
dismiss him for incompetency or misconduct ? 

This " responsibility " of the heads of executive offices 
is the one good point in the whole English Government. 
It is a point which, without doubt, we need in our own 
system. But it is the one man at the head whom we 
must hold " responsible ;" and it is the doing of his own 
work for which we must hold him responsible, and not 
work to be done in Congress. 

And can anything be more childish, as a device for in- 
suring efficiency on the part of a president or a king, than 
to remove his servants ? Remove him, if our executive ad- 
ministration is to be anything but a bedlam. 

If we put our executive under such a system as this, we 
shall have the best security we can for good administra- 
tion. Under our present system we have no security for 
anything at all. 

As far as I can see, the danger to be feared from the 
executive would be none whatever. What could a Presi- 
dent do for harm, if he has no control of the purse? This 
control of the purse has always been enough to bring to 
his knees the proudest hereditary king. We do not, in 
this age, need stronger safeguards with an elected Presi- 
dent. 

The only danger to be feared would be at the hands of 
the Legislature. There is where the power lies. There 
would be the only source of danger. 

Can the Legislature, then, be trusted with the power 
they would then have ? That is the real question ; and 
that question is next to be considered.* 

* Much discussion has been had of late as to the method of elect- 
ing the President. It is pretty generally agreed that the present pro- 



EXECUTIVE ADMINISTRATION. 211 

oednre is faulty, and man}- plans have been suggested i>y way of 
modification. 

As the provisions of the Constitution now stand, there is always a 
possibility of a failure to elect which may cause serious dilliculties. 
This possibility of a failure to elect, under the present machinery, 
if political parties were destroyed, would he almost a certainty. The 
only point that makes it possible to use the present system is that the 
Electoral College merely chooses between the two party candidate-, 
merely registers the decrees of the party Leaders, 

No body of men in government machinery can he of any real ser- 
vice unless they meet in one place, where they can have an inter- 
change of minds, where they can act together and understandingly. 
The Electoral College, if it is really to act on its own will and judg- 
ment, should meet, deliberate, and vote, at one time and in one place. 
And if party rule were destroyed, then the Electoral College would 
become a real working assembly, of real use in the State. Let the 
College be the judge of the elections and qualifications of its own 
members, as either House of Congress is. We can trust our electors 
with that power as well as we can our Senators and Representatives. 
If parties and party machinery were destroyed, then we should send 
to this Electoral College our best men. They would have a real 
work to do, and they would do it well. And in the absence of par- 
ties and party machinery, it is clear that an Electoral College is the 
only way in which we could have anything like a choice of a chief 
magistrate, or of any official, by the whole people. 



212 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 



CHAPTER X. . 

THE LEGISLATURE. 

To the minds of some men, a legislature is, it would seem, 
nothing but a bulwark against tyranny and usurpation. 

But this is not so at all times. When any people be- 
gins the struggle for the right to spend their own money 
and choose their own rulers, they are driven to combi- 
nation ; and usually they find, or form, an assembly of 
some kind, which becomes the mainspring of revolution. 
This assembly in most instances afterward becomes a leg- 
islature. Naturally, therefore, men come to think that the 
main function of a legislature is to conquer and preserve 
freedom. 

But when a people has once gained its freedom, when 
it has thoroughly established its right to choose for itself 
the men who are to manage its public affairs, then this 
function of a legislature is gone. Then a legislature be- 
comes properly nothing but a body of men chosen by the 
people to exercise the supreme control over all its govern- 
ment affairs. 

From the fact, too, that there has been in English his- 
tory a continued conflict between the House of Commons 
and the Crown, men come to think that in any govern- 
ment such a conflict is unavoidable, that there is necessa- 
rily, at times, a contest for supremacy or equality between 
the Legislature and the Executive. But that need not be 
so. Where you have a hereditary king, there you cer- 
tainly do have always an element of discord. A heredi- 



THE LEGISLATURE. 219 

tan king certainly will at times try to assert his own will 
for his own purposes. The Crown encroaches. A Eouse 

of Commons, then, must be still a bulwark of liberty, lint 
when hereditary power is destroyed, when the Chief Exec- 
utive, as well as the members of the Legislature, is chosen 
by the people because he is a man fit for his place, then 
this need of never-ending war is gone. Then we can have, 
and we should have, harmonious co-operation between all 
officers, executive as well as legislative, for the highest in- 
terests of the people. Contest can then cease. 

Something analogous to a conflict between a king and a 
popular assembly is always possible, too, where parties still 
have a vigorous existence, w 7 hen there chances to be an Ex- 
ecutive belonging to one party, and a majority of the Leg- 
islature belonging to the other. In that abnormal state 
of things we often have contests for place, more bitter than 
have ever been the honest contests for liberty. 

But when this monster, party, is destroyed, then this 
never-ending strife for power between men in high places, 
for their own purposes, can end. Then we can have a gov- 
ernment instead of a bear-garden. Public officers can then 
become public servants. Affairs can then run in their nat- 
ural channels. 

When this state of things comes ; when we once begin 
to operate our Government merely for the purpose of hav- 
ing certain work accomplished in the best and cheapest 
way, then what is the place of a legislature, and how is it 
to do its w r ork ? 

Here, too, some men have an idea that the great work 
of a legislature is to make laws, as it is called — that is, to 
lay down the rules that govern the descent and purchase 
of property, the rights of individuals, and their remedies 
for those rights in the courts. And some of us even go 



214 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

so far as to think that the inain work the Legislature has 
before it is to make men good, to supervise their morals 
and their religion. 

As far as making men moral or religious is concerned, 
any attempts to accomplish these very desirable ends by 
statutes or resolutions have thus far not been crowned with 
success. There is a mistake in the method. And even 
as to the rights and remedies of individuals, every lawyer 
knows that nearly all the law we have is law which has 
been made by judges, and not legislatures. And strange 
as it may sound to some unprofessional ears, it is yet true, 
that the time of our courts is in a great measure spent 
really in undoing legislation, in efforts to protect individ- 
uals against the injustice that would result from follow- 
ing the letter of statutes, and the arbitrary rules which 
have in old times been laid down by courts themselves. 
As far as concerns the regulation of the ordinary rights of 
person and property, it would be much better if the Legis- 
lature w T ould let those matters alone altogether, if it would 
leave those matters to the judges, if it were understood to 
be the law of the land that the judges could make new 
law, could depart from the old precedents w 7 hen those prec- 
edents became antiquated, or for any reason w r orked injus- 
tice. Law, like medicine, should be administered by men 
who make it a study, subject, as all other affairs in the State 
should be, to the supervision and control of the Legislature. 

The real work for a legislature in a real government, 
which is constructed and managed on common-sense prin- 
ciples, is this — to exercise over all public officials a su- 
preme supervision and control. Supervision and control, 
and not the originating of measures of administrative re- 
form, is their proper province. In a rightly arranged sys- 
tem of government, where all the officials throughout make 






THE LEGISLATURE. 218 

their official work the profession of their lives, to which 
they give their whole time and thought, which they there- 
fore know better than other men, the schemes for admin- 
istrative reform, and for practical measures in the govern- 
ment work, would naturally and almost invariably come 
from the men in the different special departments. Ev- 
erything that these specialists in the different departments 
should devise and propose would, if it called for the spend- 
ing of more money, or for any great change in the meth- 
ods of working, be submitted to the Legislature, and would 
be by the Legislature approved and authorized. But in 
the vast number of instances that would be all that the 
Legislature would do. 

The English House of Commons, our own Congress, 
and all our State Legislatures try to do more than that : 
they try to originate elaborate schemes of administration, 
and to arrange the details of government work. That is 
a mistake that comes from the lack of system which runs 
through these two forms of government, from the fact that 
neither the legislative nor the executive departments, either 
in Great Britain or here, are in the hands of men who give 
their entire time to one work — who know more about that 
one work than other men. The members of the Legis- 
lature do, in the vast number of instances, know r as much 
about matters of administration as the executive officers 
who are specially charged w 7 ith the care of those matters. 

As soon, however, as the officers in different depart- 
ments should become men of a profession, and should in 
that profession have more thorough knowledge than other 
men, then the body of the Legislature w r ould become what 
it should be — a supervising committee — which would 
represent the whole people, and for them would simply 
regulate and control all this vast government work. This 



216 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

supervising committee would hear the reports from the 
Chief Executive of work already done in the different de- 
partments of the Government, and of money expended ; 
it would then listen to his plans for new work to be done ; 
these plans would be submitted in the form of careful 
statements, giving accurate details of the work proposed and 
the money it is to cost. When a private individual is to 
build a mill or a railroad, he gets from an architect or an 
engineer plans and specifications ; and if the architect or 
engineer knows his profession, those plans and specifica- 
tions are correct, down to the minutest detail of cost and 
material. Government work is of precisely the same kind. 
It consists of building forts and ships, making vast harbor 
improvements, of raising and spending money. It is work 
of the same kind that is done for individuals. It can be 
done in precisely the same way, if only we are willing to 
adopt the same principles of common sense which we fol- 
low in our private affairs. And if we construct our gov- 
ernment machinery on the same plan on which the great 
merchants operate their business, then what we call our 
Legislature would fill the function here pointed out. 

Now, to secure an assembly which will do this work of 
supervision and control, and do it well, two points are to 
be considered : 

1. Its constitution. 

2. Its powers. 

First, what shall be its constitution — how shall it be 
made up ? 

In such a body we need — 

1. Members from all professions and callings — except 
party — for we wish this Legislature to have, among its 
own members, as far as may be, knowledge of all kinds. 

2. Members, in number large enough, to insure that any 






THE LEGISLATURE. 217 

errors of one man or clique of men shall have as Blight a 
chance as may be of causing- unwise decisions. 

3. Members, in number small enough, to insure efficient 
deliberation and action by this assembly as one body meet- 
ing together. 

And, to secure these points, experience seems to show 
that the number of members in a legislature should be 
about five hundred men, and the constituencies should be 
regulated with a view to giving that number. And with 
a legislature of that size, it seems quite impossible that 
any one interest or any one business or profession could 
fail to have its full representation, or could have too large 
a representation. 

That point of number being disposed of, how are these 
members to be chosen ? As has been said, if parties and 
party schemers can be destroyed, there is no way so safe, 
and so sure of giving good results, as to have these legisla- 
tive members chosen by a popular vote, of all men. The 
question will be one simply of choosing the best men. It 
is a certain thing that the men who would be chosen would 
be men who w r ere w T ell known for success in some honest 
pursuit. They would be men who had been proved and 
found true, and proved in some calling other than that of 
operating election machinery. The men we should choose 
would be men of affairs. Some of the scholars and stu- 
dents would be chosen if they had shown themselves to be 
men of wise judgment as well as wide knowledge. But 
the man who know r s books, and nothing else, has no place 
in a government service. 

And very clearly, if anywhere in our public service a 
body of servants having some permanence in its constitu- 
tion and organization is needed, it is in the Legislature. 
How is it possible that a body of men, ever changing from 

10 



218 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

one year to another, should be able to have any real knowl- 
edge, or to form any wise judgment, as to any public ques- 
tion ? These men in our national Legislature are to have 
the supreme control of everything. They need more thor- 
ough knowledge, if possible, than any other men in the 
w 7 hole service. Is it not clear that any man — the greatest 
genius in the world — who is to be of any real use in doing 
work, like this, must have the peculiar knowledge that 
comes only from giving his time and thoughts to this 
w T ork, and to nothing else, year after year? Above all 
things, can he do our work well if his first end and aim 
must always be to secure the next election for his party ? 
Here more than anywhere else in our government must we 
have training and knowledge. These men in this supreme 
assembly must, of all men, be free to give their time and 
labor aud their best judgment to the people's work. For 
them, above all men, party and the term system must be 
destroyed. If we destroy party and party rule in this su- 
preme council, w T e might almost have it everywhere else. 
If we leave it there, we might as well leave it everywhere 
else. 

There comes, then, the question, What powers should 
this national Legislature have ? 

As it would seem, this supreme Council or Legislature 
should have — 

1. The absolute control of the money. 

2. The absolute power, in its supreme discretion, of 
making all necessary laws, and of regulating the duties of 
all public officials. 

3. The absolute power of removing, by a two-thirds vote, 
for any cause in its judgment sufficient, any government 
official. 

„4. No power whatever over appointments. 






Till: LEGISLATURE. 210 

(1.) As to the control of the money, that is a power that 
Congress now has, that the II<>uv,> of ('ominous lias, that 
the legislative assembly has, in every free government. 

(2.) As to the power of making all necessary laws and 
of regulating the duties of all public officials, that is a pow- 
er that the English House of Commons lias ; and no evil 
result has ever come from their having it. It is a power 
that every State Legislature has; and no evil result bas 
come from their having it. It is a power that our Con- 
a now has, with only a restriction as to subjects. On 
those subjects, however, over which Congress has now any 
power at all, its power is supreme, except for the Presi- 
dent's veto, which will be afterward considered. 

Why should there be these restrictions as to subjects 
on which our national Legislature may use its supreme 
power ] 

What living man or body of men could possibly foresee, 
now or in the year 1787, all the matters on which this 
people will need national legislation? Somewhere under 
our government system, either in our Congress, or in Con- 
stitutional Conventions chosen from time to time, the pow- 
er must be of deciding what measures of national leoisla- 
tion are required by the interests of the whole nation ; 
and the simple question is, Who can most wisely decide as 
to what those measures shall be — the members of the Leg- 
islature, or the members of what we call a Constitutional 
Convention ] In other words, shall these matters be de- 
cided by the men of experience who make government af- 
fairs their one profession, or by new men taken at nap-haz- 
ard from other professions ? 

There can be no doubt that, even now, many measures 
of national legislation are needed which arc not within the 
power of Congress. Since the year 1787 we have grown ; 



220 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

new interests have come into existence ; the people have 
new needs; new kinds of work are to be done by our 
public servants. Many matters will at once strike any 
mind on which national legislation is necessary, and where 
legislation by the separate States is utterly insufficient. 

Our entire manufacturing interests are every year seri- 
ously interfered with, and their very existence is endan- 
gered by the failure of the water in the rivers and streams 
which furnish power for many of our mills. These riv- 
ers and streams, almost everywhere, have failed greatly in 
late years, both in the quantity and regularity of their 
water supply. It is . on all hands agreed that this failure 
in the water supply is caused by the alarming destruction 
of our forests. This same cause has made large tracts of 
our territory subject to long and severe droughts, such as 
used years since to be almost unknown. No one can tell 
the possible danger to manufactures and agriculture, if the 
destruction of our forests goes on in years to come as it 
has gone on for the last hundred years. Dr. F. M. Oswald, 
in the Popular Science Monthly for August, 1877, ascribes 
the barrenness and desolation of countries which were 
once the most rich and nourishing gardens on the earth to 
nothing but the destruction of the forests. And he quotes 
from Champollion, as to a district in the very centre of 
the Sahara, the following passage : . 

"And so the astounding truth dawns upon us that this desert 
may once have been a region of groves and fountains, and the abode 
of happy millions. Is there any crime against Nature which draws 
down a more tangible curse than that of stripping our Mother Earth 
of her sylvan covering ? The hand of man has produced this desert. 
And I verily believe every other desert on the surface of the earth 
was Eden once, and our misery is the punishment of our sins against 
the world of plants. The burning sun of the desert is the angel 
with the flaming sword, who stands between us and paradise." 



THE LEGISLATURE. 221 

It is wry clear that if legislation is at all necessary to 
protect the forests of the country, the legislation of Binglo 
States could accomplish nothing. It must be national leg- 
islation or none. Congress lias now no power to legislate 
at all on the point; and the wealth of the country in years 
to come may depend on it. 

The mere existence of New York harbor may depend, 
in the same way, on the keeping the present flow of water 
in the Hudson River. And that depends on keeping the 
forests. The preservation of the Mississippi River, our 
greatest public highway, depends on keeping our forests, 
through the whole region from the Rocky Mountains to 
the Alleghanies — or, it may be, from the Atlantic Ocean 
to the Pacific. Legislation by the States is worth no more 
than resolutions in a town-meeting. 

Without question, we need a national Board of Health. 

It has been very generally conceded that there should 
be a " uniform system of bankruptcy" throughout the 
States. And the main purpose of any bankruptcy system 
is, to have only one administration and distribution of the 
estate of a living man amono- those who are entitled to it, 
for the whole country. But why should there not be the 
same unity of administration of the estate of a dead man ? 
In these days of railroads and telegraphs, any man who is 
engaged widely in business enterprises, and who amasses a 
large fortune, is almost certain to leave property in differ- 
ent States. In every State there must be, as the laws now 
are, a separate administration. How much expense and 
confusion would be saved if there could be only one ad- 
ministration for the whole country, as in the case of the 
estate of a bankrupt ! 

Xo one now will question the benefits arising from the 
use, under proper restrictions, of corporations. They make 



222 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

possible large enterprises of all kinds to which the capital 
of individuals is unequal. They make possible, too, sta- 
bility of management, and the investment of capital by 
one person, in many different enterprises, which would be 
beyond the power of any one man or set of men to over- 
see or control. And these corporations often must nec- 
essarily have property, and carry on their operations, in 
many different States. Much trouble and expense would 
be saved if there could be one national law for the forma- 
tion of corporations, which should have an existence rec- 
ognized by law, through all the States, for all purposes. 
The giving of such a power to Congress w T as proposed at 
the time the Constitution was framed ; and the necessity 
of such a provision has become more and more apparent 
in these later years. 

Can any one doubt that it would be, in very many ways, 
a great advantage if the laws of inheritance, the law of 
marriage and divorce, and all branches of mercantile law, 
w r ere uniform throughout all the States? But they can 
never become so until Congress has full power to legislate 
on all subjects. 

It may even be considered whether there would not be 
an advantage in having not only general laws applicable 
everywhere through all the States on very many matters 
that cannot now be thought of, but also whether there 
would not be great economy to the whole country in hav- 
ing only one set of courts of justice. Of what possible 
advantage is this double jurisdiction? To propose the 
abolition of State Courts at the time of the formation 
of the Constitution w T ould have been folly. Such a plan 
would never have been for an instant considered. It w r ould 
never have been even proposed. But why should w T e have, 
in numberless matters that concern rights of property, one 



THE LEGISLATURE. 228 

law in Massachusetts and another law in New York i Ami 
why should wo have the law administered, for one class 

of parlies and matters, by a court that we call a United 
States Cotttt, and for another class by what we call a State 
Court I 

As the Constitution now is, Congress can legislate on 
no new subject without a constitutional amendment, rati- 
fied by the conventions of a certain proportion of the 
States. This is a proceeding difficult, dilatory, and expen- 
sive. Certainly, if party influence were removed, and Con- 
gress was composed of the men who were really the choice 
of the people — men who should make the science of gov- 
ernment and the interests of the people the study of their 
lives, and who were independent — these restrictions as 
to the mere subjects of Congressional legislation could be 
safely done away with. The general restrictions on all 
legislation should be, perhaps, retained. But certainly the 
Houses of Congress could be as thoroughly trusted with 
the general powers of legislation as the State Legislat- 
ures, or any other legislative body. The power should be 
somewhere to make laws without restriction as to subject- 
matter. It would be as safely placed in a Congress com- 
posed as has been indicated, as in any body of men that 
could be found. If we are to have such an intense dread 
of officers appointed by the people themselves, who is there 
that we shall trust, in matters of legislation or anything 
else ? If there is to be an efficient government, there must 
be power. The only question is, Where shall it be ? There 
should be more flexibility in our government machinery. 
We cannot at this time make provision for the needs of 
all coming ages ; we must leave it for the men who arc 
to come after us to decide what legislation they need. And 
who can possibly decide so wisely as the Legislature itself I 



224 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

There is no such thing as the people themselves deciding. 
That we do not wish if we could have it. We wish our 
men of the greatest wisdom and experience to decide for 
us. Should we think of calling in a collection of horse- 
dealers to prescribe to the medical men what remedies they 
are to give their patients for the next fifty years ? If we 
take five hundred men at random from the community, it 
does not follow that they know everything about legisla- 
tion, and that they are fit to regulate the Government ma- 
chinery for all coming time, even if we do give them the 
name of a Constitutional Convention. 

This Legislature, too, must be supreme over all depart- 
ments, not co-equal with other departments. 

Somewhere in the State there must be one power that 
is final and supreme, or we have only turmoil. Now, where 
shall this supreme power be ? Can it possibly be in safer 
hands than those of an assembly of the wisest and most 
experienced men in the country ? Shall it be with one man, 
with the separate wisdom of one man, or with the many 
men, with the combined wisdom of all ? 

That being assumed, there should be no such thing as 
an executive veto. No one man in the State can be safely 
given the power of overruling the decision of a body of 
men such as our Legislature should and can be. We 
make it a large body for the very purpose of eliminating 
the possibility that the mistaken views of one man or a 
few men shall be able to do any real harm. It might, in- 
deed, sometimes happen that this one man whom we call 
a President would be right, and the whole large assembly 
of men whom we call a Legislature would be wron^. Of 
that we must take our chance. The chance is very slight. 
But w T hen the will and judgment of the Chief Executive 
comes in conflict with that of the Legislature, there should 



THE LEGISLATURE. 220 

be do question for an instant which is to yield. We can- 
not have two masters, in government or elsewhere. 

The whole point of the necessity of a veto comes from 
the same idea before mentioned, that government is a per- 
petual conflict — a system of "checks and balances." It 
should be nothing of the kind. There must be, on the 
contrary, system, unity ; and that we can never have where 
there is a contest for supremacy or equality. 

But it might well be wise to require for all legislation 
the same protection which we now require for measures 
that have been vetoed by the President — a two -thirds 
vote. Measures of general policy, which are really called 
for by the people's interests, would seldom fail to get that 
two-thirds vote. But this point, too, would probably be 
most wisely left to the discretion of the Legislature itself, 
to be decided by the experienced men from the results of 
their own experience. 

(3.) We come, then, to the power of removing the Chief 
Executive. 

If this Legislature or supreme council is to have any 
control at all over the executive administration, it must 
have the absolute power of removing the Chief Executive 
for any cause which is in the opinion of the Legislature 
sufficient. And here is the wise method, and the only ef- 
ficient method, of securing between the executive and the 
Legislature that harmony of which so much is said. This 
power of removal should be guarded, too, as it would 
seem, by requiring a two-thirds vote for its use. 

Somewhere this power of removal should be ; and it 
should be in the hands of men who would have the 
knowledge how to use it wisely. 

No man or body of men could have the knowledge, as 
to the fitness or unfitness of the Executive, which the Leg- 

10* 



226 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

islature would have. They would be the men in the State 
who would have had, from day to day, all his official con- 
duct under their eyes. 

Give this body of men no voice in the appointment of 
the new President, and I can see no possible way of find- 
ing a body of men who could be so thoroughly trusted to 
use honestly the power of removal, as this same Legislat- 
ure. If the policy or conduct of a President were mis- 
chievous, as it might be or become, there could be little 
doubt that a two-thirds vote could be had for his removal. 
If a two-thirds vote could be had for his removal, there 
is little doubt that he should be removed. 

This is the power that the House of Commons has, as 
to all the heads of departments, on a mere majority vote 
— and they use this power of removal whenever the min- 
istry err on some one single question of public policy. 
Men generally do not think the use by the English House 
of Commons of that power on such a reason is a source 
of danger. Bat remove party and party strife, and a 
President would never be removed for a single error. On 
the contrary, the knowledge that he could be removed for 
persisting in a policy at variance with the w r ishes or judg- 
ment of the Legislature would make him heed their w T ish 
and judgment. It would, too, make the Legislature toler- 
ant of mere single errors of judgment on his part. And 
that is a possibility which men seem to have lost sight of, 
that either the Legislature or the executive could possibly 
act like reasonable individuals — that either one could pos- 
sibly yield to the other. Suppose we have as President a 
man of wonderful administrative talent — that talent con- 
sisting, as it surely w r ould, mainly in his having sound 
'judgment for selecting his subordinates. Suppose that he 
gave us successful management of our affairs for many 



THE LEGISLATURE, 229 

years — that ho managed the finances, the purchases of war 
material, and tin 4 expenditure of money for our rivers and 
harbors, with wonderful skill. There comes up some one 

question of public policy on which he and the Legislature 
differ. Why is it necessary that lie should resign, or be 

removed, because he docs riot think the policy of the 
Legislature wise i Why can he not give up his own will, 
take the policy of the Legislature, and honestly carry it 
out, with all the skill which he has gained and shown in 
his years of service ; That is the way men do in private 
affairs. Suppose this line of policy adopted by the Leg- 
islature were not the wisest, would the nation be ruined I 
Would not time show its lack of wisdom ? And is there any 
reason to think that the members of the Legislature would 
be the only men in the community who would learn noth- 
ing from this test of time? Do we expect that our public 
officials will never make blunders, will invariably take the 
wisest course of action? And do single blunders invaria- 
bly bring utter ruin in the affairs of nations? We must 
assume that, under the best system, w r e shall sometimes 
have a mistaken policy on the part of our rulers. We can 
only choose thje machinery which will, on the whole, give 
us the chance of the fewest mistakes. But no mistakes 
can possibly burden us as does this never-ending strife be- 
tween different men and bodies of men in the government. 
The whole matter comes to this one point : Can we find 
any method whereby we have the chance of fewer blun- 
ders, than the method of giving the final control of all our 
affairs to an assembly of the wisest men that the people 
themselves can select ? 

The power of removing judicial officers by a two-thirds 
vote is one given to one or both branches of the Legislat- 
ure in nearly every State in the Union. And as to the 



228 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

propriety of their having that power, there is general agree- 
ment. And the power has seldom, if ever, been misused. 

(4.) We come, then, to the next point, that this Legis- 
lature should have no voice whatever in the appointment 
of officials, the Chief Executive or any other. 

Invariably, whenever a legislative assembly has had any- 
thing to do with appointing executive officers, that assem- 
bly has become a hot-bed of intrigue. 

I assume that the members of this Legislature, the very 
large majority of them, would be men of pure intentions. 
But if they had in their hands the appointment as well 
as the removal of the President, there would always be a 
temptation to scheming men to combine against the Pres- 
ident for the purpose of putting some other man in his 
place. If, however, the choice of a successor depended on 
the action of a body of men which had then no existence, 
so that the matter of who should be the successor would 
be one that could not possibly be made certain beforehand, 
could not be made the matter of bargain or understanding, 
then the danger from this source is reduced to the least 
possible degree. For that reason we should make it cer- 
tain that this Legislature, though it might remove a Presi- 
dent, could have no voice in the appointment of his suc- 
cessor. Eemove from them, and from all men in the na- 
tion, this great temptation to combine in an intrigue against 
the Chief Executive. 

In the British House of Commons men are always 
scheming to get office. It is so in our National Legislat- 
ure, and in every one of our State Legislatures. It w r as so 
in our old Continental Congress, which had only one pow- 
er of any kind or description, that of appointing the com- 
mander-in-chief of the army. 

Throughout the war, "Washington, nominally in com- 



THE LEGISLATURE. 

raand of the army, never could be certain one day whether 
he would be in command the next Every memh 

parate plan of campaign. Xo two men 

had the same plan. Xo one man had the same plan two 

There was nothing bnt intrigue. The men in that 

Congress were as pure-minded men as ever met in one 

body for any purpose. They had magnificent intentions. 

It waa only because their intentions were so good that 
they intrigued. They saw that affairs did not prosper. 

They had the power to interfere, and they used the power, 
with the best motives and the worst results. It is always 
so. For deciding the general features of national policy 
we undoubtedly need the wisdom of many men. For ex- 
ecuting that policy, and, above all, for selecting men, we 
must have the one-man system. 

I cannot see how any better machinery can possibly be 
devised for the choice of a President than our present Elec- 
toral College, if it meets in one body, and if we remove the 
influences of party. Put it in the people's power to send 
members of Congress to this Electoral College, if they wish 
to do so. In any event, we should be certain that the mem- 
bers of this College would have advice, and all the real as- 
sistance that members of Congress could give them. In 
all probability the choice of such a College would be the 
choice that would be made by Congress itself. But still 
Congress should not be the body which would have the 
power to make that choice. The two powers should not 
be in the same body. 

Here, too, it is proper to say what is to be said as to the 
provisions for temporarily filling a vacancy in the office of 
President. Let us do away with that fifth wheel to a 
coach, the Vice-president. Provide simply that, in case 
of a vacancy in the office of President, from any cause, the 



230 A TRUE EEPUBLIC. 

senior cabinet officer shall be President until a new Presi- 
dent is chosen by the Electoral College. That is a simple 
means of securing that there shall m no event be a vacan- 
cy, for so much as one day, in the Chief Executive office. 
It secures, too, that the temporary control of executive ad- 
ministration shall be in the hands of the man who, proba- 
bly of all men in the country at the time, has the most 
thorough knowledge of it. There would be a strong prob- 
ability, too, that that man, who would certainly be a man 
of administrative talent and of great experience, would be 
the choice of the Electoral College. 

This supreme council in the State must content itself 
with making general rules and laws, and must then hold 
the Chief Executive " responsible " for results. 

But it has been here argued :hat no man, under this or 
any system of government, should hold " irresponsible " 
power — power which cannot be taken from him. Here we 
have thus far a system by which all men in the Govern- 
ment service, up to a certain point, are made "responsible." 
The lowest man in the executive departments is responsi- 
ble to his immediate superior, and this superior is respon- 
sible to the man above him ; and so it is till we reach the 
head of the department. The head of the department, 
again, is responsible to the Chief Executive, and the Chief 
Executive is responsible to the Legislature. But, then, to 
whom is the Legislature responsible ? Who can remove 
the members of this supreme council if they fail to do 
their work well ? They are to purify the executive ad- 
ministration and the judiciary, Who shall purify the 
purifiers ? 

They must purify themselves. We must use there pre- 
cisely the same protection we have had ever before. As 
has been said, one corrupt man, or a few corrupt men, can 



THE LEGISLATURE. 281 

do rery little harm. They would soon be round out, and 
their power for evil would soon be gone. We assume 
that some o( these men may be dishonest; we assume, too, 
that most of them will be honest. New men will be al- 
ways coming in, old ones will be always going out. This 
supreme assembly will be like the sea; it will be kept pun; 
by the streams of fresh life which will always be flowing 
into it, and by its own never-ceasing motion under the sun- 
light of public opinion. 

A body of men, chosen as these men would be, holding 
by no term system, on a tenure which will be somewhat 
permanent, would have every possible advantage for giv- 
ing us the best work. 

In the first place, the men in the Legislature would 
soon find their own level — would be rated at their own 
true value, for doing good work in that assembly, and not 
for carrying elections. Then at last we should have it 
possible that the regular principles of natural selection 
should operate and have their legitimate effect in the se- 
lection of our legislators. The strong men would rise to 
the top. Men who were only clever talkers would soon 
wear out the patience of an assembly which met to do its 
own work quickly and well. Men who came to such an 
assembly, too, without any fitness for doing its work, 
would be treated with quiet contempt and neglect; they 
would find the air uncongenial, and would leave it ; they 
would give way to other men. This having permanence 
in the membership of our Legislature, as well as for other 
branches of the Government, would operate gradually to 
give us there the services of the men who were best fitted 
for that special work; men would have time to find their 
true places. That is now an impossible thing. 

Then, too, an assembly thus constituted would have the 



232 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

time and experience needed to find new ways of doing 
new work, of dealing with new problems. New machinery 
for doing this work of a great people would come nat- 
urally into existence — would grow. The work of this as- 
sembly would gradually drift into committee work — the 
only kind of work which can be well done — except in the 
case of new and very important questions. Everything 
done by the committees would be, of course, subject to the 
confirmation and approval of the full body. As has been 
said, with a permanent executive service, nearly all meas- 
ures of administrative reform would be suggested by the 
specialists — the men in the executive service. And these 
measures, when they came before the Legislature, would 
be referred to committees who would be in the main per- 
manent, and would be made up of men who would give 
their study and thought to matters in their special line of 
duty. 

Then, too, the new blood which came into this assem- 
bly would come steadily and unceasingly, not like a bien- 
nial avalanche* Our legislation, our government work of 
all kinds, would have stability ; we should have a govern- 
ment policy. Men could have some sense of security as 
to the course of affairs. A measure passed at one session 
of Congress would probably not be repealed at the next, 
nor until time had shown it to be unwise. 

But the great gain of all would be this, that measures 
of government policy could then be fairly considered be- 
fore they were taken, and fairly tried after they were 
taken. As matters now are, that is impossible. No meas- 
ure is considered on its merits ; every measure is made a 
" party measure." We must have no u party measures." 
All measures should be measures of the people. It is our 
right to have, from every single man in our legislative 



Tin: LEGISLATURE. 

service, hia beat judgment on every single measure which 
cornea before him for hia action. On no measure has he 
the right to consider for an instant what the interests of 

his party call for, or to know that there is such a thing as 

party in existence. But, as matters now arc, even after a 

measure is on 1, we still have " party n interfering 

at every turn with its having a fair trial. The party which 
opposed the measure before its adoption does everything 
in its power to hinder the successful working of the meas- 
ure after its adoption. When a measure is once pa 
the interest of the people demands that all men should co- 
operate in putting this measure to a fair trial. Until that 
is done, no man can tell, certainly, whether it is good or 
bad. That is what we wish to find out. If, on trial, the 
measure is found to give good results, we wish to keep it, 
without regard to party. If it gives bad results, we wish 
to undo or change it, without regard to party. 

As has been already said, what we need in our govern- 
ment service is not strife, but harmony — efficient work. 
More than in any other place, we need that harmony in 
our Legislature. 

We can never have it, there or anywhere else in the 
Government, until we destroy party. Until that is done, 
we can have no such thing as government, nothing but 
repeated political earthquakes, fostered by men who have 
not, indeed, bad intentions, but who are driven by the 
overpowering influences of their surroundings to fight over 
elections, and to use the forms of free government to per- 
petuate a most oppressive tyranny. 

But some men, even if the arguments here made should 
command in some degree their assent, would yet have a 
lingering fear that this proposed change of tenure cm to the 
Legislature would have some evil features, or evil results. 



234 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

They would fear that the abolition of the term system, 
even if it might be wise as to executive officials, would be 
unwise or dangerous for the Legislature. My purpose is 
to meet all objections to what is here proposed, as fairly 
and fully as I am able. These objections to the abolition 
of the term system with our legislators would be, so far as 
I can anticipate them, these — 

1. The tenure of the members, as here proposed, would 
be substantially a tenure for life. 

2. These members, thus holding for life in a permanent 
assembly, would get out of sympathy with the thoughts 
and wishes of the people. 

3. There would be danger of corrupt combination among 
the members of a permanent body such as would be then 
established. 

4. The people would lose their control over their legis- 
lators. 

5. This would not be a " representative government." 

I can think of no objection that would not be, in effect, 
a mere modification of one of these. Some of them have 
been already considered ; but they will be again noticed. 

(1.) Let us take the first one — that we should have sub- 
stantially a life tenure for our legislators. 

That is undoubtedly true. We should have substantially 
a life tenure ; but it would not necessarily be a long term. 

Remove party influences, and the men who would be 
sent to our Legislature would be, in the large number of 
instances, men of somewhat advanced years, men who had 
already made a reputation in some walk of life. I have 
made a rough calculation of the terms of actual service of 
the judges of the United States Supreme Court, the Mas- 
sachusetts Supreme Court, and the New York Supreme 
Court (taking the Xew York judges down to the year 1846, 



THE LEGISLATURE. &85 

when the term of years was introduced). Tin* average 

period that these computations have given is a term of 
about twelve years. And this computation, though not 
made with nice accuracy, cannot be much in error. There 
is every reason to think that that would be about the 
average length of the term of service of legislators, if they 
should hold ofliee during good behavior. Sometimes the 
term of service would be longer, sometimes shorter. Now 
no one seems to have the least fear of giving our judges a 
term of fourteen years. In Pennsylvania some judges have 
a term of twenty-one years. And where is the difference ? 
As far as concerns the mere length of the term of service, 
no point can be made against the tenure during good be- 
havior. 

(2.) Take the next point — that there would be danger 
that the members thus holding for life in a permanent as- 
sembly would get out of sympathy with the thoughts and 
wishes of the people. 

This is a fear which comes in the main from the idea 
that government is a moral agency, instead of a machinery 
for collecting revenue and doing work. But let it be fair- 
ly met. 

In the first place, once in twelve years w r e should have 
substantially the entire membership changed. This of it- 
self would seem to be a sufficient safeguard against any 
danger of this kind. 

But these men who would go to our national Legislature 
would not necessarily cease to be human beings. They 
would still live with other men. They w T ould still have all 
their old interests. Is there any man in the community 
whose ideas do not change and grow ? Can such a thing 
be ? Can any man live from one day to another, read 
new books, see new men, learn from the press what is be- 



236 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

ing done and said throughout the world, and himself, alone 
of all men, stand still ? If that can happen, we are surely 
coming upon an age of miracles. Can these men be dead 
statues, when all the rest of the world is living and mov- 
ing? Can they think in an utterly different way from 
that in which other men think, in which they have them- 
selves thought all their lives — or, rather, will they at once 
stop thinking ? 

Suppose, on the other hand, that these men who would 
be chosen by the voice of their fellow-men to care for the 
fortunes of the State, for the reason that they had proved 
themselves to be men of power — suppose it should happen 
that these men should lead the thought of the nation, in- 
stead of being an age behind it. And which is the more 
likely supposition of the two ? These men, who would 
make laws and administration the one study of their lives, 
would be the teachers and not the pupils of the people. 
And when the people once learned that to be the fact (as 
they soon would do if it were the fact), then what our leg- 
islators did and said would command with the people the 
same confidence and respect that other men command in 
their professions. But, as things now are, most of us know 
as much as our legislators. 

(3.) Next, what would be the real danger of corrupt 
combination ? 

Remove party influence, and the men who would be 
chosen to our national Legislature would, above all, be 
men who had, all their lives, proved themselves to be hon- 
est. As Mr. Lincoln put it in a sentence before quoted : 
" All that I am in the world, the Presidency and all else, 
I owe to that opinion of me which the people express 
when they call me ' Honest old Abe.' " If we send to 
our Legislature men who have been all their lives honest — > 



THE LEGISLATURE, 

if we put them in high public place, with the eyea of all 

the world on them, where from honest action they have 
everything to gain, and from dishonest action they have 
everything to lose, will such men suddenly throw aside all 
their old habits of thought and action, and try to betray 
and enslave the people with whom they have always lived, 
and with whom they have still to live all the rest of their 
1 That is an imagination simply monstrous. Such a 
thing cannot be. AVe have never known anything like that. 

No doubt it might happen that, even with party com- 
binations destroyed, wc should at times get bad men in 
high place. But unless there were many of them, no great 
harm could come of it. That is the very reason why we 
give the supreme power to a body of many men, and not 
to any one man. In a legislative body of an ordinarily 
large number of members, one member alone can do little 
or nothing in the furtherance of a corrupt purpose. He 
must have many associates. One man, then, has nothing 
to gain by being corrupt, unless he can influence many 
other men to be corrupt with him. And how much dan- 
ger would there be of that ] 

But when the point is urged that under a tenure during 
good behavior there would be danger of corrupt combina- 
tion, the argument is, by implication, that the term system 
gives us purity. But so far from the term system giving 
us purity, it has given us nothing but corruption, whenever 
and wherever it has been tried — in the Legislature, on the 
bench, and in the executive department. More than that, 
having the term system in the Legislature and executive 
alone, where the real power in any government is, and 
must be, has done much to corrupt the other departments 
of the service. And it is only the tenure during good be- 
havior that has been the protection of those other depart- 



238 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

ments. The term system has given us corruption, because 
it has made officials dependent on party men. The tenure 
during good behavior, wherever it has been tried, has given 
us purity, because it has made officials independent of all 
men. So they must be, if we wish to protect them from 
the powerful influences to which they may at any time be 
exposed. 

But this fear of corrupt combination among the mem- 
bers of a legislature throws entirely out of consideration 
the immense strength of public opinion. Can we not be- 
gin to weigh this one all -controlling power at its true 
value? It is what has brought every true reform in our 
whole history. There is no absolute monarch among civ- 
ilized nations who does not fear it. Can it be that these 
public officials of a free people, chosen from the people, 
by the people themselves, will be the only men in the 
world who will pay no heed to it ? 

But consider the position of affairs now. We do have, 
as things now are, the most powerful combination ever 
seen, of all our officials, under the party system ; and tak- 
ing that svstem at its worst, we have been able to endure 
it, and the liberties of the people (as the term is common- 
ly used) have been tolerably secure. With party destroy- 
ed, where can there be any real danger from combinations 
in the Legislature alone ? 

(4.) We come, then, to the objection that the people 
would, under this tenure for during good behavior, lose the 
control of their legislators. 

This point in a measure implies that the people, under 
the term system, keep that control. But we know, as a 
matter of fact, that they do not. The actual result of the 
term system has been to take all control from the people 
and give it to the party organizations. 



THE LEGISLATURE. 

But under the system here proposed the people would 
retain every real control over their legislators that they 
now have, and would free these legislators from the tyran- 
ny of party under which they now labor. The only direct 
machinery we now have for punishing a corrupt legislator 
is the power of removal which rests with the Legislature it- 
self. That we should still keep. And there would be no 
such powerful influences to hinder its use, on fitting occa- 
sions, as the influences of party now are. But, as has been 
argued, so far as concerns mere honesty of action, the only 
real protection we ever can have is in the character of the 
men we put in public place. What we wish to secure is, 
in the main, the choosing our best men to our Legislature ; 
and if we do that, we can trust them to be honest after 
we choose them. 

(5.) But it may be said, this would not be " representa- 
tive government." This would be setting up an inde- 
pendent power in the State, a new will — not the will of the 
people, but a will over and above the will of the people. 

What do we mean by "representative government?" and 
in what correct sense can any real government be " repre- 
sentative ?" Throwing names and words aside, what kind 
of " representative " government, in the nature of things, 
can any people possibly have ? 

Some men have an idea that our legislators are to " rep- 
resent" the wishes and opinions of what they term the 
" people," on every question that comes up for action. 
But what is the " people ?" Where are we to find the 
record of its wishes or its opinions ? There can, in the 
nature of things, be only the wishes and opinions of the 
individual men who make up the people. And when men 
say that legislators are to follow- the wishes and opinions 
of the " people," they mean, at most, the wishes and opin- 



240 A TKUE REPUBLIC. 

ions of a majority of these individual men. But if legis- 
lators are to follow the wishes of a majority of the peo- 
ple, is it to be a majority of the whole people, or is each 
legislator to follow the wishes of a majority of his own 
constituents? Putting it either way, how is a legislator 
to get at those wishes ? Is he, when measures come up 
for action, to send to his constituents, or to some imagi- 
nary collection of men, for a letter of instructions ? 

Anything in the most remote degree like that is simply 
impossible. 

But do we wish that? Suppose we send to the Legis- 
lature men much wiser than ourselves, for the very reason 
that we know them to be wiser than ourselves — do we not 
wish those men to use their wisdom, and act on the best 
judgment which that wisdom can compass? Put that 
question to a vote, if everything in the world is to be de- 
cided by a majority vote, and there is no doubt how the 
majority will be. Eich and poor — men whom we call 
educated and whom we call ignorant — will agree there. 

Do we really wish that our legislators should give us only 
such legislation as we ourselves think best ? Do men wish 
their shoemaker to make such shoes as they themselves 
would make, or their lawyer to try their causes as they 
themselves would try them, or their physician to give them 
such drugs as they themselves may fancy ? What we wish 
from our public servants is, not such work as we should 
ourselves do, or as we may think the best, but better work 
than we know anything about. On any proper theory of 
government we select our very best men, to use their own 
brains, and not ours, in our service. We choose them, or 
should choose them, because they will be leagues in ad- 
vance of anything we dream of. 

Our legislators are not to " represent " our wishes and 



THE LEGISLATURE. U\ 

ideas. They are to represent as. They are to act, for as, 

but on their own best judgment They are to act, Dot on 

the wish of any one man or body of men, nor for the in- 
terest of any one man or body of men, but for the highest 

interests of the whole people. 

They are, for us, to supervise and control all our public 
work. They are, for us, to decide what that work shall be, 
and how it shall be done. This they are to do for us, be- 
cause, in the nature of things, we cannot do it for ourselves. 
And in that sense only are they to "represent" us. 

And in this sense only is "representative government" 
a possible thing — that the people are themselves to choose 
their servants, instead of having men usurp or inherit 
power. 

And therein consists free government. 
11 



242 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 



CHAPTER XL 

A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

Let us now see what are the conclusions to which we 
have been led. 

The chief points which have been here maintained are 
these — 

1. Public officers must have only one kind of work. 
There must be no confusion of legislation and executive 

administration. 

2. Each officer must be held " responsible " — for doing 
well the work of his own office. 

No man, then, must hold office, for life, or for any term 
of years or days, but only for so long as he does well the 
work of his office. 

3. Each executive officer must be made responsible to 
his immediate superior in office. 

Every head of an executive office or department must, 
then, have the power of appointing and removing all his 
subordinates in that office or department. 

4. There must be one Chief Executive at the head of the 
executive administration, who must be held responsible for 
all that executive administration. 

5. That chief executive must be responsible directly to 
the supreme assembly. 

6. That chief executive must be chosen by the votes of 
the whole people through the machinery of an Electoral 
College. 



A TRUI REPUBLIC MA 

7. There must be some one power in the State which is 
supreme over all citizens and officers. 

s. This supremo power must be an assembly, of a rea- 
sonable number of men, chosen by the people. 

9. This assembly shall have the power — 

a. To make all necessary laws. 

b. To raise and disburse the people's revenues. 

c. To create and abolish all oflices (except that of Chief 
Executive) and regulate their duties. 

d. To remove all officers. 

e. To appoint no officers. 

10. Aside from this framework of executive officers, and 
from this supervising council, is the judiciary — the body of 
men who dispense justice. 

As they have to pass on the acts of both executive offi- 
cers and of this supervising body, let them, too, be elected 
by the people. 

Let them, too, be removable by the Legislature, as there 
is no permanent body of men with whom that pow r er of 
removal can be so well left. That is substantially as it 
is now arranged. 

This is the statement of all the positions, which it has 
been attempted to establish in this argument by an exam- 
ination of the results of actual experiments in government 
mechanics. 

Let us, then, compare our system of government as it 
would be, when modified as is here proposed, with the pres- 
ent English system of government, and see what points 
the two would have in common, and what would be the 
points of difference. 

The points the two systems would have in common 
are — 

1. The omnipotence of the Legislative Assembly, 



244 A TRUE REPUBLIC, 

2. The power in the Legislative Assembly to summarily 
remove the executive. 

The points of difference are — 

1. We should have one man as Chief Executive instead 
of a committee. 

2. This Chief Executive would be responsible, instead of 
his servants. 

3. The Chief Executive would be chosen by the people, 
instead of depending on the contingencies of party ma- 
noeuvres in the Legislative Assembly. 

4. The power of removal would be restricted by the 
two-thirds vote required. 

5. Executive officers would be chosen for fitness for ex- 
ecutive work, and not for party considerations. 

6. Executive officers w 7 ould depend for their tenure of 
office on doing well their executive work, instead of on the 
contingencies of party in the Legislature. 

7. The Legislative Assembly having nothing to do with 
appointments, the inducements to intrigue for office would 
be, as far as may be, removed, and the time and labor of 
its members would be given to their proper work, the su- 
pervision and control of all government affairs. 

It will be seen at once that the points the two systems 
would have in common are the ones which have been very 
generally conceded to be the wise points in the English 
Constitution. 

The points of difference are the points wherein the Eng- 
lish executive administration is, as has been argued, essen- 
tially faulty. 

Let us see, then, what changes in our present national 
system of government will be made, if we adopt all these 
proposed modifications. 

The changes would be few and simple. 



A TRUE REP1 BMC 840 

1. We abolish fche term system. We should have QO 

man holding his ofSce for a day longer than he does hia 

work well. 

2. We give to Congress — 

a. All the legislative power. 

b. None of the appointing power. 

c. The removing power, by a two-thirds vote, for any 
eause in their discretion. 

3. We give to the Chief Executive and his heads of de- 
partments — 

a. None of the legislative power. 

b. Full appointing and removing power as to executive 
officers. 

4. We have the Electoral College meet in one place, and 
make it the judge of the qualifications and elections of its 
own members, as the Houses of Congress now are. 

5. In case of a vacancy in the office of President from 
any cause, we have the senior head of department act as 
President until a successor is chosen. 

That is the enumeration of all the changes. And in 
what do they consist ? In only two points. 

1. They give unity and simplicity to our present system. 

2. They provide the means for enforcing the responsi- 
bility of public officials where now none exists. 

As to the first point. 

The Legislature is to have nothing to do with the ap- 
pointment of officials or with the details of administra- 
tion. That is to be left to the men in the executive ad- 
ministration, the only ones who can have any knowledge 
of what is to be done. The Legislature will only super- 
vise and control. 

The executive is to have nothing to do with legislation. 

Every official will have work <>f one kind. 



246 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

As to the second point. 

Under the system proposed, there will be a means provided 
for enforcing the responsibility of our public servants. 

The old maxim — what is every one's business is no one's 
business — furnishes the key to our difficulty. Under our 
present system, or lack of system, we depend on " the peo- 
ple," as we say, to enforce the responsibility of officers. 
The result is that no one enforces that responsibility. We 
say, we will all make it our business to follow caref ally 
what each one of our public servants does. We cannot 
do that. Each one of us is occupied with his own private 
affairs. We cannot be always watching our public ser- 
vants or hearing complaints against them. What we must 
do, then, is to so arrange our service as to have it perma- 
nent, and have some one man over each one servant, whose 
especial duty it shall be to enforce the responsibility of 
that servant. Whenever one of these servants does a 
wrong act there will always be some person in the com- 
munity whom that wrong act will hurt. We can depend 
on that man to complain, and set in motion the machinery 
to punish that wrong, if we only furnish the machinery, 
and make it simple, speedy, and vigorous. The man, then, 
who is hurt must not be compelled to make a general lam- 
entation to " the people," and ask them to remember this 
wrong act until the end of two years or four years, and 
then put the officer out of his office. There must be some 
one man, the superior in office of the official who has done 
the wrong, to whom he can go then, to whom he can make 
his complaint then, and from whom he can get his redress 
then. Appealing to the people does no good. To hear 
these complaints, the people would have to organize them- 
selves in one grand court, with one unending sitting, with 
millions of ears and brains. Imagine it ! 



A TRUE REPUBLIC. 847 

It may be said that, under the presenl system, the Pres- 
ident and the heads of departments have the power and the 
duty of enforcing this responsibility o\' subordinates. They 

have, indeed, the duty, but we destroy their power. How 

can a President enforce responsibility, when he must have 

the consent of some large body of men to a removal or an 
appointment ! If he should attempt to discipline a sub- 
ordinate, the subordinate knows there is another power, a 
body of men, among whom he can intrigue, and through 
whom lie can possibly conquer his superior. And how 
can any otlicer enforce responsibility who has only a short 
time within which to inform himself as to the affairs of 
this great service, and who is driven to combine with the 
very subordinates whom he should discipline, in order to 
carry these continual elections ? 

It is an impossible thing. There can be no enforcing 
of responsibility under any such arrangement as that. 

Under the modifications that I propose, however, the 
plan, and the whole of the plan, is this : 

Every official has work of only one kind. For that 
work of one kind he will be held " responsible " to one 
man, who is, in his turn, responsible for enforcing this re- 
sponsibility to the one man above him. And when we 
reach the head, he, and he alone, is responsible for all the 
men under him to the one supreme body. And every one 
of these officers is to stay in the service, and rise in the 
service, so long as he does his work well. 

Thereby we make it certain, as far as any system can 
make it certain, that each one of these officers will make 
the work of his office the one profession of his life, that 
he will learn his work, and do it, as men do in private af- 
fairs ; whereas now we make it certain thai our public 
servants will neither know their work nor do it. We 



248 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

make it impossible for them to learn it ; we mate it cer- 
tain that they will do something else. At the end of a 
time when an officer might possibly, if we allowed him to 
do so, learn something of the duties of his office, we re- 
move him, and put a new man in his place who is as de- 
void of knowledge as the one removed was in the begin- 
ning. Is it strange that our public service is inefficient ? 
Why should we not have the laws of human nature work- 
ing with us, to secure good government, instead of having 
them all working against us, to secure anarchy ? Why 
should we not have our public servants working together 
in harmony to serve our interests, instead of prolonging 
strife to serve the interests of their party ? 

One point further. 

If this system is sound and wise for the national Gov- 
ernment, it is sound and wise for State governments, for 
our county and city and towm governments. They are all 
alike — machineries for doing work. 

And it is this immense election machinery which we 
must destroy. And we must destroy it everywhere. 

An attempt has been made during the progress of this 
argument to anticipate and fairly meet the objections 
which may be made to the plan here proposed. But there 
may be some points which still need to be examined, and 
as far as I can anticipate them, they will now be considered. 

It will seem to some men that the plan here proposed 
involves a great change in our government machinery. 
So it does. But we need a great change. We must have 
one of some kind. The only question is what the change 
shall be. 

It may be said that this plan would be wholly an experi- 
ment. So it would be. So was the Constitution itself 
only an experiment. So is every single new statute. 



A TRUE REPUBLIC. 249 

Keeping the Constitution as it- now is, is nothing but an 
experiment — a now one — for we shall continue it under 

new conditions. And the question is, whether we will 
continue an experiment which Ave know has failed, or will 
try a new experiment which we think may succeed. 

But, above all things, some will fear that the system here 
proposed would create an " aristocracy," something at war 
with the spirit of republican institutions, and therefore 
dangerous. And this word " aristocracy " will have, to 
some men, a portentous sound. 

Guizot says* the word " aristocracy " means " a govern- 
ment where the sovereign power is centred in a particu- 
lar class of citizens, who are invested with that power as 
an inheritance, by right only of their birth, in a manner 
more or less exclusive, sometimes almost entirely exclu- 
sive;' 

It is not intended to depend on this mere definition, or 
on any mere matter of words and terms, to meet the point 
now under consideration. But, as it seems to me, the dis- 
tinction made in the extract just given goes to the root 
of the matter. It is the hereditary element, that makes 
the only danger in any " aristocracy." If we have in the 
State a body of men, who have from their birth been 
brought up in the idea, not that they are public servants 
who owe a duty to the people, but that power over the 
lives and fortunes of other men is theirs of right, inherit- 
ed by them with their lands, to be used for their own ends 
and purposes, there is, no doubt, always danger, from such 
men, of tyranny and corruption. But take an assembly 
of men who have, for their honorable lives, been chosen by 
the people from their own number to be the people's ser- 

* "Origines do Crouvernement Representatif," vol. i. p. 101. 
11* 



250 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

vants — with such an assembly of such men, we have never 
seen the slightest tendency toward anything of the kind. 

We should have a chief magistrate, chosen by the peo- 
ple. We should have, over and above him, a supreme as- 
sembly, chosen by the people. New men would be con- 
tinually coming into this assembly. Once in twelve years 
it would be substantially a new body. This supreme as- 
sembly controls the revenues. No scheme of usurpation 
or wrong could succeed without its aid and assent. And 
if five hundred men, chosen as these men would be, can be 
induced to corruptly aid any scheme of usurpation, then 
we must use the remedies against usurpation that are al- 
ways left outside of the law. 

But that means, it may be said, revolution. So it does. 
Revolution is the only remedy, under any government, 
against usurpation on the part of the rulers of the State. 
But at this day, in a free country, revolution accomplishes 
its end before it has an existence. The fear of it is all 
the protection needed. Revolution always has been the 
voice of the people, of public opinion. Before the age of 
printing, steam, and the telegraph, armed insurrection was 
the only way the people could make its voice heard. It 
has now other methods, less costly and more powerful. 
Revolution by force of arms may still be the remedy used 
by ignorant and oppressed peoples. But it is a remedy 
that belongs to the age when a people has not yet gained 
freedom and knowledge. 

Popular assemblies have often been conquered, with the 
people, by usurpers. They have at times, in the heat of 
revolution, committed great excesses. They have not, as 
far as I am aware, ever lent themselves knowingly to any 
scheme for destroying the people's liberties. 

If ever there could have been danger of corrupt com- 



A TKli: REPUBLIC. 25] 

lunation on the pari of a legislative body of reasonable 
numbers, it was after the Restoration in the reign of 
Charles II. The reaction from the doctrines of the Rev- 
olution had brought in a Bpirit of most unreasoning and 
subservient loyalty to the King, Corruption had no 
bounds; and the House of Commons was not an assembly 
chosen by the whole people, but its members were mem- 
bers of the landed aristocracy, who had no sympathy with 
anything like popular government Yet in this Parliament, 
the longer it existed, the more determined was the opposi- 
tion to royal usurpation. Mr. Hallam has a most signifi- 
cant passage on this point, which is worthy of the most 
careful consideration. He says :* 

" Long sessions, and a long continuance of the same Parliament, 
have an inevitable tendency to generate a systematic opposition to 
the measures of the Crown, which it requires all vigilance and man- 
agement to hinder from becoming too powerful. The sense of per- 
sonal importance, the desire of occupation in business (a very char- 
acterise propensity of the English gentry), the various inducements 
of private passion and interest, bring forward so many active spirits, 
that it was, even in that age, as reasonable to expect that the ocean 
should always be tranquil, as that a House of Commons should con- 
tinue long to do the King's bidding with any kind of unanimity or 
submission. Nothing can more demonstrate the incompatibility of 
the Tory system, which would place the virtual and effective, as well 
as nominal, administration of the executive government in the sole 
hands of the Crown, with the existence of a representative assembly^ 
than the history of this long Parliament of Charles II. None has 
ever been elected in circumstances so favorable for the Crown ; none 
ever brought witli it such high notions of prerogative ; yet in this 
assembly a party soon grew up and gained strength in every Bucces- 
sive year, which the King could neither direct nor subdue. The 
methods of bribery to which the court largely had recourse, though 
they certainly diverted some of the measures and destroyed the char- 

* ffallam's "Cou>t. TT i -^ t . ' " vol ii. p. :;•">. 



252 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

acter of this opposition, proved in the end like those dangerous med- 
icines which palliate the instant symptoms of a disease that they 
aggravate. The leaders of this Parliament were, in general, very 
corrupt men ; but they knew better than to quit the power which 
made them worth purchase. Thus the House of Commons matured 
and extended those rights of inquiring into and controlling the man- 
agement of public officers, which had caused so much dispute in for- 
mer times ; and, as the exercise of these functions became more 
habitual, and passed, with little or no open resistance, from the 
Crown, the people learned to reckon them unquestionable or even 
fundamental, and were prepared for that more perfect settlement of 
the Constitution on a more republican basis, which took place after 
the revolution." 

And in a note to this same passage is given the follow- 
ing: 

" Aubrey relates a saying of Hamilton, just before the Restoration, 
which shows his sagacity : c Well, the King will come in. Let him 
come in, and call a parliament of the greatest cavaliers in England, 
so they be men of estate, and let them sit but seven years, and they 
will all turn Commonwealth's men. 1 " 

An English king, with a parliament made up of men 
whose thoughts and training were all in favor of kingly 
power, and against what we call popular government, was 
unable to crush free government. That was two hundred 
years ago, in royal England. To-day, in republican Amer- 
ica, we can safely assume that a President of the United 
States will never be able to induce the representatives of 
the people to betray their trusts for the purpose of aiding 
plans of usurpation. That these men would set up a 
monarchy, or a hereditary aristocracy, is not to be be- 
lieved. England and every other nation in Europe began 
with a monarchy, and they are all working toward repub- 
licanism. Are we alone to reverse the order of nature? 
And what has made in Europe the revolution from mon- 



A TRUE REPUBLIC, 
archy to republicanism I Nothing but the advancing 

growth of public opinion. And is public opinion to be 
powerless with us alone? Jefferson said,* "The spirit of 
our people * * * that would oblige even a despot to gov- 
ern us republicanly." 

We may assume, then, that our legislators and other 
officials would never combine to set up a king or any one- 
man power. Their own interests would prevent that. 
Royalty has always had to conquer its power, and will not 
at this late day get it by popular election. 

But it may be said that even if there be no great dan- 
ger that the legislators should give hereditary power or 
excessive power to a President, or to any one man, they 
might attempt to commit legislative usurpation, to make 
a tyranny by the Legislature itself. 

But what could they do ? 

Has combination for the purposes of usurpation ever 
been possible among more than two or three men ? And 
would not combination of any two or three men, for any 
purpose of this kind, be certain to bring revolution in 
Congress as well as out of it ? Undoubtedly, against the 
dangers of possible combination and usurpation it is wise 
to have the supreme power, the control of the purse, rest 
in the hands of an assembly of reasonable numbers. But 
so long as the control of the purse is in the hands of a 
legislature, combination for usurpation by any set of men 
out of the Legislature is impossible. And so long as the 
Legislature has as many as three hundred members, com- 
bination for usurpation by any set of men within the Leg- 
islature is impossible. 

Let us not, however, be afraid of a mere word. There 

* Jefferson's "Writings," vol. vii. p. 11. 



254 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

undoubtedly would be an " aristocracy," in the true mean- 
ing of the word — a " government by the best men," an ar- 
istocracy in which birth without worth would give no title, 
which would be open to the son of the poor man and the 
rich man alike, to any man who proved himself honest and 
able, and to no one else. Such an aristocracy would be 
filled with men like Washington, Webster, Hamilton — with 
men who themselves did the great deeds, not with feeble 
descendants of great men. And if the poorest man in 
America could command the services of the ablest and 
most honest men in the country, to do for him his govern- 
ment work, if, too, he had himself the possibility open to 
him of the highest career in the State for which he should 
show himself fit, what more could he or would he ask ? 
And would he be frightened from having this condition of 
things by the word "aristocracy," or by any other word 
or set of words. From an "aristocracy" of that kind we 
should have little to fear. It is the one thing of all things 
needed in this country, and in every free country, to pre- 
serve free government. 

One further point is made very clear by all past expe- 
rience. When judges in England were corrupt, it was the 
men who were already rich and powerful who could buy 
decrees. In this country, when legislators have been cor- 
rupt, it has been always the great railroad corporations, 
the large moneyed interests, the men who were already rich 
and powerful, who could buy statutes. Such members of 
Congress as were corrupt gave their fine words to the poor, 
and sold their votes to the rich. So it was, too, with cor- 
rupt judges in our courts. The only protection that the 
poor and the weak can ever have against the rich and pow- 
erful, lies, above all things, in having all public officials — 
judges, legislators, and executive — independent, therefore 



A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

honest and fearless. Could a ricb man or a powerful man 
obtain favor, or anything more than justice, from Marshall, 

or Kent, or Story 1 And as our judiciary once was, BO ev- 
ery branch of our Government should be, pure. And so 
it can be. Did the benches of our courts fifty years ago 
hold all the honest men in the world? But wc know that 
our judges then were honest. 

All governments, which deserve the name, have certain 
features in common, and certain main points of difference. 

They all have, under some name or form — 

1. Judicial officers — for administering justice. 

2. Executive officers — for doino* o;overnment work. 

3. A supreme authority — one man, or one body of men 
— which controls and regulates all officials and their duties. 

We do not, indeed, in all governments, find every official 
confined to one class of duties, as he should be, if the work 
is to be well done. But we find, in all governments, these 
different kinds of work. 

The differences between different forms of government, 
in the main, concern one point — the point whether power 
in the State shall be, 

1. Property, held by individuals, descending with their 
other property to their children ; or, 

2. A trust, reposed by the people in their fittest men. 
The idea that power in the State is property is at the 

bottom of the hereditary system. That system does not 
rest on a sound idea, and whenever any people has real life 
and strength, it will sooner or later destroy the system of 
inherited power. 

If, then, we hold that power in the State is a trust t<> 
be reposed by the people in its fittest men, we must make 
our Bystem such as to secure in the public service, as wb 
stated in the outset, 



256 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

1. The best men. 

2. Their best work. 

And we must secure the true substance, not the false 
form of good government. If men try to persuade us to 
give our public servants power only for two or four years, 
on the fear that otherwise we shall lose our control over 
those servants, we must carefully examine whether by that 
system of terms for years we shall not really lose all con- 
trol over our servants, and be setting over ourselves and our 
servants a new tyrant, stronger than any hereditary tyrant 
ever was. 

We have been trying to do more than lies in our pow- 
er. We, the people, if we assume or pretend to make our 
own laws, or to make for ourselves the selection of every 
one of our public servants, undertake a task beyond our 
strength. We are then driven to elections for one, two, 
and four years. We make it certain that there will grow 
up a body of professional traders in elections, and that 
these traders will, through their greater skill, gained by 
constant practice, take this matter of the choice of our 
public servants from us. We must be content to do less 
with our own hands. We must, as we do in our private 
affairs, use the hands and brains of other men, who can do 
our work for us better than we can do it ourselves. We 
must choose one man to manage all this vast government 
work for us. We must trust him, as we trust other men, 
as other men trust us. We must give him the power to 
choose his subordinates to do that work, because we know 
he can make that choice better than we can. We will 
hold him " responsible " for the work of all those subordi- 
nates. Even that mere holding him to that responsibility 
we cannot ourselves do. We must have that done for us, 
by a body of men who can meet, deliberate, give careful 



A TRUE REPUBLIC. 25* 

thought to our affairs, and have thorough knowledg 
them. These men we will ourselves choose from <»ur- 
Belves. They shall be our wisest men, who have lived 
among us all their lives — who have always been faithful 
wherever they have been tried — whom we know to be 
men of honor, who will not betray us. There are such 
men — thousands of them. Those men we know we can 
trust, and we will trust them. We will get them in our 
service, and keep them there. We will give them the 
power that we cannot use ourselves, for we know it will 
with them be in wiser hands than our own. We will 
learn the measure of our own strength. We will not try 
to make our own shoes, or our own law r s. We will have 
both made for us, by the best men we can find for either 
service. 

Then we shall have a Government, of the people — for 
the people — by its wisest men. That will be a True 
Republic. 



258 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 



CHAPTER XII. 

CONCLUSION. 

The great mistake made by our ancestors, if any was 
made, was in supposing that the men in our government 
service could not be trusted. They thought that, to se- 
cure liberty, it was necessary that no one man or body of 
men should have, either full power over one thing, or any 
power for a long time. For that reason they gave the 
executive a voice in legislation, and they gave one branch 
of the Legislature a voice in appointments of executive 
officers. For that reason they made both executive and 
legislative officers hold only for short terms of years. 

We have tried very thoroughly this plan of tying the 
hands of our public servants. It does not answer our 
needs. If we expect good work from our public officials, 
we must trust them with power — the power to do bad 
work as well as good. If our servants wish to be corrupt, 
they will devise ways of corruption, no matter how we limit 
their powers. The restrictions of Constitutions and statutes 
have never been enough to keep men honest. 

What we must depend on for securing good and honest 
work is, in the main, the character of the men we place in 
public office. We must also have, as to every official, the 
power of removal, vested in the hands of some one man 
or body of men, where we think it will be most wisely 
used. But that is not our chief dependence. The power 
of removal must exist. But we do not count on its being 
often used. 



CONCLUSION. 

In all our private affairs we trust men. Every day and 
every hoar we put in the bands of other men our lives 
and fortunes. We know we can do bo safely. We 

rust our public servant-, if we only let our beat men 
serw aa No doubt we cannot trust our public affairs in 
the hands of men who are Belected by the chance of birth, 

but we can trust men who are chosen for their honest Uvea 

In order to get those best men in our service, all we 
need is to have things free. We must throw off the 

chains. The best men must be free, to enter the people's 

service. The people must be free, to take those men into 
their service. Those men must be free, after they are in 
the service, to give the people their best work. We must 
have no fetters, of party, or hereditary power. 

This is no visionary Utopian scheme. The aim is sim- 
ply to have our government affairs managed as well as are 
our private affairs. Why should they not be ? It is not 
proposed to try any new experiments. There is nothing 
new here. Everything has been proved, by the experience 
of the Anglo-Saxon race. 

And if these modifications proposed are wise, it is a 
perfectly possible thing to have them made. The work of 
changing this Constitution would be a mere trifle compared 
with the work of making it. We forget how hard a task 
it was to form this Government. All the prejudices, of all 
classes of men, in all the colonies, were in the beginning 
opposed to the adoption of the Constitution. Madison 
wrote to Washington, on the 3d February, 1788 :* 

'•New York, February 3d. 11 
•• To General Washington : 

k * Dear Sir, — Another mail has arrived from Boston without ter- 
minating the conflict between our hopes and fears. I have a letter 

Madison's Papers," p. 



260 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

from Mr. King, of the 27th, which, after dilating somewhat on the 
ideas in his former letters, concludes with the following paragraph : 
* We have avoided every question which would have shown the divis- 
ion of the House. Of consequence, we are not positive of the num- 
bers on each side. By the last calculation we made on our side, we 
were doubtful whether we exceeded them, or they us, in numbers. 
They, however, say that they have a majority of eight or twelve 
against us. We by no means despair.' Another letter of the same 
date, from another member, gives the following picture : ' Never was 
there an assembly in this State in possession of greater ability and 
information than the present Convention ; yet I am in doubt whether 
they will approve the Constitution. There are, unhappily, three par- 
ties opposed to it — first, all men who are in favor of paper money 
and tender laws — these are, more or less, in every part of the State ; 
secondly, all the late insurgents and their abettors — in the three 
great western counties they are very numerous ; we have in the con- 
vention eighteen or twenty who were actually in Shay's army ; third- 
ly, a great majority of the members from the province of Maine. 
Many of them and their constituents are only squatters on other peo- 
ple's land, and they are afraid of being brought to account ; they also 
think, though erroneously, that their favorite plan of being a separate 
State will be defeated. Add to these the honest doubting people, 
and they make a powerful host. * * * With all this ability in sup- 
port of the cause, I am pretty well satisfied we shall lose the question, 
unless we can take off some of the opposition by amendments. I do 
not mean such as are to be made conditions of the ratification, but 
recommendations only. Upon this plan I flatter myself we may pos- 
sibly get a majority of twelve or fifteen, if not more.' " 

All possible objections were made against it. Luther 
Martin wrote :* 

" Let me call the attention of this House to the conduct of Vir- 
ginia when our Confederation was entered into. That State then 
proposed and obstinately contended, contrary to the sense of and un- 
supported by the other States, for an inequality of suffrage founded 
on numbers, or some such scale, which should give her and certain 
other States influence in the Union over the rest. Pursuant to that 

* Elliot's " Debates," vol. i. p. 346. 



CONCLUSION. 261 

spirit which then characterized her, and uniform iii her conduct, tin- 

very Beoond resolve is calculated expressly for that purpose — togwt 
her a Hon proportioned to her number* — as if the «ran1 of 

that was the principal defect in our original Bystem, and this altera- 
tion the great means of remedying the evils we had experienced un- 
der our present government 
"The object of Virginia and other large State* to inrr<>is< their pow- 
r ih> <>tli> n did not escape observation." 

George Mason wrote :* 

"In the House of Representatives there is not the substance, but 
the shadow only, of representation, which can never produce proper 
information in the Legislature or inspire confidence in the people. 
The laws will, therefore, be generally made by men little concerned 
in and unacquainted with their effects and consequences. 

" The Senate have the power of altering all money bills, and of 
originating appropriations of money, and the salaries of the officers 
of their own appointment, in conjunction with the President of the 
United States, although they are not the representatives of the peo- 
ple, or amenable to them. These, with their other great powers (viz., 
their powers in the appointment of ambassadors and all public offi- 
cers, in making treaties, and in trying all impeachments), their influ- 
ence upon and connection with the supreme executive from these 
causes, their duration of office, and their being a constant existing 
body, almost continually sitting, joined with their being one complete 
branch of the Legislature, will destroy any balance in the Govern- 
ment, and enable them to accomplish what usurpations they please 
upon the rights and liberties of the people. 

" The judiciary of the United States is so constructed and extended 
as to absorb and destroy the judiciaries of the several States, there- 
by rendering laws as tedious, intricate, and expensive, and justice as 
unattainable, by a great part of the community, as in England, and 
enabling the rich to oppress and ruin the poor. * * * 

" * * * The President of the United States has the unrestrained 
power of granting pardon for treason, which may be sometimes ex- 
ercised to screen from punishment those whom he had secretly insti- 
gated to commit the crime, and thereby prevent a discovery of his 

* Elliot's M Debates;' vol. i. p. 194. 



262 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

own guilt. By declaring all treaties supreme laws of the land, the 
executive and the Senate have in many cases an exclusive power 
of legislation, which might have been avoided by proper distinctions 
with respect to treaties, and requiring the assent of the House of 
Representatives, where it could be done with safety. * * * 

" This government will commence in a moderate aristocracy ; it is 
at present impossible to foresee whether it will, in its operation, pro- 
duce a monarchy or a corrupt oppressive aristocracy; it will most 
probably vibrate some years between the two, and then terminate in 
the one or the other." 

Gouverneur Morris wrote to Washington :* 

" With respect to this State, I am far from being decided in my 
opinion that they will consent. True it is that the city and its neigh- 
borhood are enthusiastic in the cause ; but I dread the cold and sour 
temper of the back counties, and still more the wicked industry of 
those who have long habituated themselves to live on the public, and 
cannot bear the idea of being removed from the power and profit of 
State government, which has been, and still is, the means of support- 
ing themselves, their families, and dependents, and (which is per- 
haps equally grateful) of depressing and humbling their political ad- 
versaries. What opinions prevail more southward I cannot guess. 
You are in a better condition than any other person to judge of a 
great and important part of that country. 

"I have observed that your name to the new Constitution has 
been of infinite service. Indeed, I am convinced that, if you had not 
attended that convention, and the same paper had been handed out 
to the world, it would have met with a colder reception, with fewer 
and weaker advocates, and with more and more strenuous opponents. 
As it is, should the idea prevail that you will not accept the Presi- 
dency, it would prove fatal in many parts." 

The Constitution was finally adopted because the sober 
sense of the American people told them they needed a 
government. It will be of service to see precisely how 
the " people " then thought and felt. I quote the words 

* Elliot's " Debates," vol. i. p. 506. 



CONCLUSION, 

of a plain New England farmer, in the Massachusetts Con- 
vention which met to act on the proposed Constitution: 

M Mr. President, I am a plain man, and gel my living i>y the plough. 
I am not used to Bpeak in public, but I beg your Leave to Bay a few 
words to my brother plough- joggers in this Bouse. I have lived in a 
pari of the country where I have known the worth of good govern- 
ment by the want of it. There was a black cloud that rose in the 
east last winter, and spread over the west. [Here Mr.Widgery in- 
terrupted. Mr. President, L wish to know what the Lf«'iit l<*inan means 
by the east.] I mean, sir, the county of Bristol ; the eloud rose there, 
and burst upon us, and produced a dreadful effect. It brought on a 
state of anarchy, and that led to tyranny. I say, it brought anarchy. 
People that used to live peaceably, and were before good neighbors, 
got distracted, and took up arms against government. [Here Mr. 
Kingsley called to order, and asked what had the history of last win- 
ter to do with the Constitution. Several gentlemen, and among the 
rest the Hon. Mr. Adams, said the gentleman was in order — let him 
go on in his own way.] I am going, Mr. President, to show you, my 
brother farmers, what were the effects of anarchy, that you may see 
the reasons why I wish for good government. People, I say, took 
up arms ; and then, if you went to speak to them, you had the mus- 
ket of death presented to your breast. They would rob you of your 
property ; threaten to burn your houses ; oblige you to be on your 
guard night and day , alarms spread from town to town ; families 
were broken up ; the tender mother would cry, ' Oh, my son is among 
them ! What shall I do for my child V Some were taken captive, 
children taken out of their schools, and carried away. Then we 
should hear of an action, and the poor prisoners were set in the 
front, to be killed by their own friends. How dreadful, how distress- 
ing, was this ! Our distress was so great that we should have been 
glad to snatch at anything that looked like a government. Had 
any person that was able to protect us come and set up his stand- 
ard, we should all have flocked to it, even if it had been a monarch ; 
and that monarch might have proved a tyrant ; so that you sec that 
anarchy leads to tyranny, and better have one tyrant than so many 
at once. 

11 Now, Mr. President, when I saw this Constitution I found that it 
was a cure for these disorders. It was just such a thing as we want- 



264 A TRUE REPUBLIC. 

ed. I got a copy of it, and read it over and over. I had been a mem- 
ber of the Convention to form our own State Constitution, and had 
learned something of the checks and balances of power, and I found 
them all here. I did not go to any lawyer to ask his opinion ; we 
have no lawyer in our town, and we do well enough without. I 
formed my own opinion, and was pleased with this Constitution. My 
honorable old daddy there [pointing to Mr. Singletary] won't think 
that I expect to be a Congressman, and swallow up the liberties of the 
people. I never had any post, nor do I want one. But I don't think 
the worse of the Constitution because lawyers, and men of learning, 
and moneyed men are fond of it. I don't suspect that they want to 
get into Congress and abuse their power. I am not of such a jealous 
make. They that are honest men themselves are not apt to suspect 
other people. I don't know why our constituents have not a good 
right to be as jealous of us as we seem to be of the Congress ; and I 
think those gentlemen, who are so very suspicious that as soon as a 
man gets into power he turns rogue, had better look at home. 

"We are, by this Constitution, allowed to send ten members to 
Congress. Have we not more than that number fit to go ? I dare 
say if we pick out ten we shall have another ten left, and I hope ten 
times ten ; and will not these be a check upon those that go ? Will 
they go to Congress, and abuse their power and do mischief, when 
they know they must return and look the other ten in the face and 
be called to account for their conduct ? Some gentlemen think that 
our liberty and property are not safe in the hands of moneyed men 
and men of learning. I am not of that mind. 

"Brother farmers, let us suppose a case now: Suppose you had a 
farm of fifty acres, and your title was disputed, and there was a farm 
of five thousand acres joined to you that belonged to a man of learn- 
ing, and his title was involved in the same difficulty, would you not 
be glad to have him for your friend, rather than to stand alone in 
the dispute ? Well, the case is the same. These lawyers, these 
moneyed men, these men of learning, are all embarked in the same 
cause with us, and we must all swim or sink together ; and shall we 
throw the Constitution overboard because it does not please us alike ? 
Suppose two or three of you had been at the pains to break up a 
piece of rough land and sow it with wheat ; would you let it lie waste 
because you could not agree what sort of a fence to make ? Would 
it not be better to put up a fence that did not please every one's fan- 



CONCLUSION. 

cy, rather than not fence it at all, or keep disputing aboul it until the 
wild beasts came in and devoured it ? Some gentlemen Bay, Don't 
be in a hurry; take time to consider, and don't take a Leap in the 

dark. I say, Take things in time; gather fruit when it is ripe. There 
is a time to sow and a time to reap. We sowed our .-red when we 

Bent men to the Federal Convention; now is the harvest, now is the 
time to reap the fruit of our labor; and if we won't do it now, I am 
afraid we never shall have another opportunity.' 1 

There are men now in the United States, very many of 
them, like the fanner in the Massachusetts Convention 
— men whom we do not call " educated," but who under- 
stand the problems of political science as well as many of 
those who have more to do with books. These matters 
here discussed are matters of importance, but they are easi- 
ly within the understanding of ordinary men. Whether we 
will have our executive affairs managed by one man, who 
is held responsible for doing his work, or by a commit- 
tee of party men who are held responsible for controlling 
votes in a legislature, is a very simple matter. Whether 
it is wiser to have the man who commands our armies 
removed at once if he fails to give us good work, or to 
have him keep his office for two or three years longer — 
any one can understand such a question as that. 

If these views are sound, men will be convinced by them. 
If they are not sound, no one will heed them. 

That is the only question we have to examine — whether 
these views here urged are sound. If they are, the people 
will put them into practice. 

12 



V* 



A P P^ N D I X . 



While this book is going through the press, I find the lat- 
est evidence as to the condition of English array administra- 
tion. 

The following extract is from a letter printed in the London 
Times of 30th June, 1879. Apparently the writer of the letter 
is possessed of accurate information on the matters of which 
he speaks. And it is well understood that the Times, like oth- 
er reputable journals, does not print statements of this kind 
without first being satisfied as to the character of the writer 
and the correctness of what he writes. 

"THE STATE OF THE ARMY. 

{From a Military Correspondent.) 

u Exception may be taken to the assertion that the army 
is in a state of collapse, but the following facts clearly prove 
that the term is no exaggeration. On the 1st of this month 
the total number of soldiers above threo months' service in 
the fifty-five battalions of the Line in the United Kingdom 
and Ireland amounted to 21,950. The eighteen battalions of 
the Line which stand first on the roster for foreign service, and 
which would naturally form the First Army Corps in the event 
of war, number but 10,421 men, and of these G0S2 are under 
two years' service. These battalions are 2413 beneath their 
peace complement, one, the Ninety-fifth Foot, being 367 below 
its proper strength. Thus, to bring the First Army Corps up 
to a war footing, it would require 9579 transfers. Even the 
five battalions at the head of the roll for active service aro 
B89 under their peace establishment; but to bring them to the 
usual war strength of 1000 bayonets, 3000 volunteers would 
have to be called for. The five battalions which recently cm- 



268 APPENDIX. 

barked for South Africa were not selected on account of their 
unfitness for active service ; on the contrary, they were high 
on the roster for foreign duty, and presumably were in a fit 
condition to embark ; yet, owing to one cause or another, vp- 
ivards of 1000 men from these five battalions were rejected on the reg- 
iments being detailed for embarkation. We may assume that the rest 
of the army is in a like condition. Consequently, deducting 200 
men from each corps as unfit, we find that there are but 11,000 
efficient soldiers of over three months' service in the infantry 
of the Line. It will be said that we have our Reserves, 
and that, according to the opinion of the Lord Chancellor, 
these men are permitted to volunteer. True, but the Army 
Eeserve numbers but 16,949 men ; and the Militia Reserve, the 
members of which are scarcely in a condition to take their 
place in the ranks, amount to 22,214. Deducting three per 
cent, for absentees, this gives us something short of 50,000 men 
as the total available strength of the infantry of the Line in 
the United Kingdom. It is not too much to say that there is 
not a single battalion noio at home, if we except the Twenty-eighth, 
which has just returned from the Straits Settlements, ichich is in a fit 
state to take the field. Of the battalions first on the roster for 
foreign service, which would in any emergency naturally form 
the First Army Corps, and which would prior to embarkation 
require to be completed to a strength of 1000 non-commission- 
ed officers and men, six do not muster 400 each. I take them 
as they stand on the roster — the Ninety-fifth is now 363 strong ; 
the Seventy-fifth, 369 ; the Forty-ninth, 322 ; the Thirty-eighth, 
303 ; and the Thirty-first, 376. Among the twenty-one battal- 
ions composing the Second Army Corps — that is, taking them 
on the roster for foreign service — fifteen are under 400 strong, 
while there are five corps — the First Battalion Ninth, the For- 
ty-fifth, the Seventy - sixth, the Seventy - seventh, and the 
Eighty-seventh — which do not number 300 men. . These fig- 
ures represent all men over three months' service, and include 
many who are medically unfit or who are but partially train- 
ed, so that they would be considerably reduced before the reg- 
iments could be termed efficient. The Fifty-second Light In- 
fantry, one of the strongest regiments in England, musters but 
568 men, whereas its authorized strength is laid down at 720. 
If these numbers represented efficients, or men who were likely 
to remain with the colors, the matter would be different ; but 
periodical calls are made on regiments for volunteers, and the 
best and smartest men leave in the hope of seeing some active 
service. Colonels aud captains complain, and with some show 
of reason, that they cannot take any interest in their men, 



APPENDIX 26* 

when they know that in all probability tbey will only 1 
Booiated with them for a few montha To show how injurious 
this system of volunteering is, and how regiments are reduced 
to mere skeletons, I may take the Second Battalion of the 
Twentieth Foot as a ease in point. Daring the last twelve 

months the "Mindens" have given '27>:\ volunteers, and have 

received 322 recruits. At the present moment the corps, after 
deduoting one company under musketry instruction, and the 

usual officers 1 servants and band, can muster only sixty men 
for parade and guard duties. The other regiments at Dev- 
onport are equally weak. Tho Thirty -seventh Toot in the 
past year has given 270 men as volunteers, and now barely 
musters 100 men lit for duty. The Second Battalion Fifth 
Fusiliers, tho first corps for foreign service, has 186 recruits in 
its ranks, and during the last six months lias given 35'2 volun- 
teers. The Sixty-ninth is iu a similar condition. In point of 
fact, a very large proportion of regiments now at home cannot 
parade 300 strong. 

"It is not only in point of numbers that regiments arc practically 
inefficient, but also in discipline. It is well known that non-com- 
missioned officers are the backbone of an army ; they give the 
tone to the rank and file, and in quarters and on service they 
impart steadiness to the corps. With good non-commissioned 
officers a colonel may take his battalion anywhere, may do 
anything; with bad non-commissioned officers the battalion 
is like machinery without steam — ifc has no motive power. 
The one great cry throughout the service is the want of non- 
commissioned officers. Owing to the short -service system, 
smart young fellows are passed rapidly through the ranks and 
promoted, in the hope that they will turn out well. Often, 
too often, they are quite untried men — men with little self- 
restraint, and with but a slight knowledge of the real mean- 
ing of the word discipline. Instead of bearing with the hasty 
recruit, and by their example teaching him true soldierly in- 
stincts, they needlessly harass the men, and petty acts of in- 
subordination are the result. His Royal Highness the Field- 
Marshal Conimanding-in-Chief has on more than one recent 
occasion alluded to the great difficulty of obtaining good non- 
commissioned officers, and to the pernicious effect bad men 
have on the discipline of a regiment. Insubordination in- 
creases, courts-martial are of common occurrence, and a gen- 
eral tone of unhappiness pervades a corps thus cursed. In one 
regiment that embarked for South Africa there were no fewer 
than thirty-two men in prison, in two others fifteen : another 
corps, now at home, which a few years ago stood almost un- 



270 APPENDIX. 

equalled for the absence of crime, has had during the last 
twelve mouths tweuty-seveu courts-martial, and five sergeants 
in a few weeks have been reduced for drunkenness on duty — 
in olden days an almost unheard-of offence. 

" It is clear, from a perusal of these facts, that the present 
short-service system needs some modification; it is equally 
clear that there is something radically faulty in the admin- 
istration of it. It is absolutely necessary that we should have 
a large and ever-increasing reserve, wherewith to increase our 
battalions in time of danger to a war footiug ; but it is none 
the less necessary that we should retain in the ranks a goodly 
quota of old soldiers, to give steadiness to the now largely in- 
creased proportion of young men. It is evident, too, that in- 
ducements must be held out for well-educated men of sterling 
character to accept and retain non-commissioned rank. Vol- 
unteering from one regiment to another should be most spar- 
ingly permitted ; it is subversive of discipline, and opposed not 
only to the traditions of the British Army but to the dicta of 
all our best generals. Lord Clyde expressed himself in his 
usual forcible way on the subject, and a very able memoran- 
dum of his is still extant in which he unhesitatingly condemns 
it. When a regiment nears the top of the roster for foreign 
service it should be recruited to its full strength; and should 
it suddenly be required to embark on war service, its own re- 
serve men should be drafted into it. By this means esprit de 
corps would be retained and regimental traditions remain un- 
shaken. It is impossible that the men of the Ninety -first 
Highlanders can retain much of their old spirit when we rec- 
ollect that 374 volunteers from all parts of the kingdom were 
poured into the corps within a day or two of its embarkation 
for South Africa. It is scarcely to be wondered at that com- 
plaints should reach home of the slackness of discipline of regi- 
ments or of the frequency of severe punishments. Officers 
cannot know their men ; men can have no confidence in offi- 
cers who are unknown to them. Even comradeships among 
each other have to be formed. Until officers, non-commis- 
sioned officers, and men form one homogeneous mass, a regi- 
ment can never be called a fighting unit. 

"It is as easy to point out the failures in administering the 
system as it is the blots in the system itself. It appears by 
the Parliamentary return showing the condition of the regi- 
ments embarking for South Africa, issued last March, that in 
five battalions there were no less than 211 men medically un- 
fit. It would be interesting to learn whether these were prin- 
cipally old soldiers or recruits. If the latter, there must be 






APPENDIX, 

something radically defective in our system of medical inspec- 
tion ami in our system of reports j if old soldiers, the question 

arises. Why were they not gol rid of before! Then, again, 
there were 623 men unexercised in musketry— that is to say, men who 

had never fired a ball-cartridge eren at a target ; and that litis is flO 

exceptional circumstance may be judged from the fact that yonr 
correspondent with Brigadier-General Wood's column, in a re- 
cent Letter, reported that a draft reached the Ninetieth Lighl 
Infantry just prior to the battle of Kambula, and that upwards 
of 100 men composing it were unexercised in musketry. Can 
avc expect steadiness under lire from raw recruits like tli 

The difficulty is in the system. The War-office lias no one 
responsible head who gives his whole time to its affairs. It is 
managed by a party man, who does Lis main work in Parlia- 
ment, who has no training for his place. 

What can be expected from an Administration where the 
Commissariat is attached to the Treasury ? It was so during 
the Crimean War ; I do not know if it is still so. 



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